“Fail fast and learn fast” is a principle commonly advanced to quickly grow and scale startups and SMEs. However, the literature lacks detailed insights into how such learning is organized. The paper aims to investigate how knowledge-intensive SMEs learn from failures through organizational learning processes. To answer this question, we present in-depth case studies of three SMEs that operate in a dynamic context where quick adaption to changes, failures, and learning are natural modes of practice. Our findings present the learning from the failure process, which includes three phases: (1) failure recognition, (2) interactive sensemaking, and (3) organizational adaptation. We condense our insights into a framework disentangling how SMEs succeed and fail and how they can learn from failures through their underlying learning processes. We contribute to prior literature on organizational learning in SMEs by focusing on knowledge-intensive SMEs and practices that enable effective learning from failures.

Businesses wishing to make a positive impact face challenges related to the creation and dissemination of knowledge on their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts. The challenges are twofold: first, they need to make responsibility part of the organization’s DNA, and second, they need to communicate this information to internal and external stakeholders. Responding to these challenges, this chapter provides an easy-to-follow and clear protocol to facilitate the creation of Sustainable Development Goals-driven CSR strategies and the management of CSR knowledge. This approach will enable firms to make CSR an inseparable part of their DNA and create and disseminate CSR knowledge more effectively among various stakeholders.

In the current business environment, sustainability is increasingly present in corporate agendas, as it can lead organizations to a plethora of advantages, including customer affective commitment and customer loyalty. However, not all corporate services brands commit to sustainability in the same way, but rather focus on different dimensions (i.e., economic, environmental, and/or social). This highlights the need to conduct a systematic literature review to identify which dimensions of sustainability are mainly used in the field of corporate services branding, as well as their key drivers and outcomes. As a result of this review, we also identify some future research opportunities that can serve as a guide for scholars to position their studies on sustainability in the field of corporate services branding.

During the COVID-19 crisis, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing markets, marred by significant institutional voids, grappled with a perennial lack of resources. This article seeks to understand how these SMEs activated their dynamic capabilities to manage business relationships during different phases of the crisis. Relying on the social exchange theory and drawing on semi-structured interviews with 42 business-to-business (B2B) SME owners in Nigeria, we examine the relational governance mechanisms of dynamic capabilities for SMEs during the COVID-19 crisis. Our findings reveal 12 relational governance mechanisms of dynamic capabilities of B2B SMEs. Furthermore, we disaggregate these 12 mechanisms into 34 relational governance micro-foundational components and demonstrate their relevance for B2B SMEs during different stages of the COVID-19 crisis in Nigeria.