Factors Affecting Environmental Management by Small and Micro Firms: The Importance of Entrepreneurs’ Attitudes and Environmental Investment

The paper investigates (1) the influence of external pressures, internal factors, and environ-mental attitudes of entrepreneurs on environmental proactive strategy in small and micro firms and (2) whether environmental proactive strategy impacts environmental investment and environmental performance. The study is based on a survey conducted in Italy and tests the set of hypotheses using a structural equations model. The results underline that external pressures and entrepreneurs’ attitudes are the most important predictors of environmental proactivity both for small and micro firms. The results also confirm a positive relationship between environmental proactivity and environmental investments as well as environmental performance. Yet, environmental investments show a strong influence on environmental performance. Commitment to environmental management by small and micro firms ap-pears thus on the ground, showing that some substantive actions have started to be devel-oped.