Abstract
This paper suggests that meta-organizations are important for Small and Medium-sized
Enterprises (SMEs) to take environmental action. While literature on firms’ sustainability, in
particularly environmental actions have been identifying the importance of environmental
orientation, green capabilities and opportunities, the importance of meta-organizational
membership has not been studied previously. Literature on meta-organizations, however, have
highlighted the role that meta-organizations play in sustainability transformation. That is,
demanding change through self-regulation, or supporting change through education and advice
or promoting interaction. Both demand and support may enhance the environmental
orientation, green capabilities, and alertness to green opportunity recognition of SMEs, and
may even compensate for those. By applying fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparison Analysis
(fsQCA) to study 86 Finnish manufacturing SMEs, we show that indeed neither meta-
organizations’ impacts nor the company’s motivation, ability or alertness alone results in a high
number of environmental actions, but rather a configuration of these factors is needed.
However, lack of motivation, ability and opportunity cannot be compensated with meta-
organization impacts.