Navigating climate change: Climate change awareness and strategies in micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises in a developing economy

PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0327165 July 2, 2025 4 / 26 highlighted that MSMEs develop sustainability strategies based on perceived value creation across environmental, social, and economic domains, often shaped through multi-stakeholder dialogues and influenced by the experiences and per- ceptions of organizational members. In turn, Sáez-Martínez, Díaz-García, and González-Moreno (2016) [37] found that external pressures, such as market demands and regulatory requirements, trigger sustainability strategies across firms. Henriques and Catarino (2016) [36] found that energy-related decisions depend on firm-specific characteristics, such as information accessibility and cognitive resources. Lastly, Nejati, Amran, and Ahmad (2014) [25] suggested that firms expe- riencing pressures from employees and customers tend to adopt more proactive environmental practices, like reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This implies that both external pressures and internal resources play a significant role in shap- ing CC strategies among MSMEs. Theoretical insights: Attention-based view Concerning organizational awareness and responses to CC, we draw theoretical insights from the Attention-Based View (ABV) [15,40–42]. In brief, ABV posits that organizations prioritize their attention—essentially their awareness—based on the most pressing issues impacting their organizational goals and survival [40,42]. Specifically, organizations notice, encode, interpret, and concentrate their time and effort on specific environmental concerns and strategies linked to them

[42]. As such, organizations recognize contextual factors as key drivers for understanding and assessing their vulner- ability to CC [41]. Indeed, organizations allocate their attention and resources to strategies that integrate sustainability objectives with operational goals, ensuring alignment between environmental and business imperatives, thus, responding selectively to ecological pressures and normative discourses [42]. However, firms that perceive CC as a low-priority issue tend to focus solely on financial value creation, prioritizing short-term profitability over sustainability. Importantly, perceived ecological pressures—driven by factors such as carbon market availability, the nature of the business community, and the economic sector—along with normative discourses—shaped by external pressures—may constrain firms’ strategic choices and attention toward sustainability-oriented strategies and practices. Data and methods Research paradigm and context Given the complexity and multidimensional nature of CC’s impact on business activities, this study adopts a pragmatic philosophical approach. This perspective, rooted in non-reductive naturalism, emphasizes problem-solving and practical knowledge above other considerations [43,44]. In essence, a pragmatic philosophical perspective focuses on how our social world continually unfolds through collective efforts to address the demands of modern life [44]. Such an approach highlights the importance of aligning beliefs with actions in the inquiry process that underpins the pursuit of new knowl-

edge [43]. From this standpoint, research endeavors aim to develop novel and useful insights about phenomena, enhanc- ing human perspectives, beliefs, and experiences [45]. Although existing research has emphasized the influence of contextual characteristics on MSMEs’ awareness and strategies toward CC [3], the majority of studies have focused on MSMEs within African [34,38], Asian [25,27,31,32,35], and European contexts [14,26,30,36,37,39,46], leaving the Americas relatively unexplored [3,7]. To address this gap, we conducted an exploratory, deductive quantitative study on Colombian MSMEs, aiming to deepen and expand the contex- tual understanding of CC awareness and strategic responses among these ventures within a developing Latin American country. Latin America has been widely conceptualized as a fertile context for theory building and empirical testing in the management field [47]. Colombia, as a developing nation and signatory to key international climate agreements—includ- ing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992), the Kyoto Protocol (1998), and the Paris Agreement (2015)—has committed to ambitious climate goals. These include a 51 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and the achievement of carbon neutrality by 2050. To this end, Colombia has established industry- specific targets under Law 2169/2021, focusing on sectors such as mining and quarrying, tourism, and manufacturing.