The inﬂuence of entrepreneurial, market, knowledge management orientations on cleaner production and the sustainable competitive advantage Julio Cesar Ferro de Guimar ~ aes a, * , Eliana Andrea Severo b , C  esar Ricardo Maia de Vasconcelos c a University Federal de Pelotas (UFPEL), Departament of Production Engineering, Center of Engineering (CENG), Benjamin Constant, 989, 96010-020, Pelotas, RS, Brazil b Faculdade Meridional (IMED), Departament of Master in Business Administration (PPGA-IMED), Senador Pinheiro, 304, 99070-220, Passo Fundo, RS, Brazil c University Potiguar (UnP), Departament of Master in Business Administration from the University of Potiiguar (PPGA-UnP), Engenheiro Roberto Freire, 2184, 59082902, Natal, RN, Brazil article info Article history: Received 17 August 2017 Received in revised form 5 November 2017 Accepted 11 November 2017 Available online 13 November 2017 Keywords: Cleaner production Sustainable competitive advantage Entrepreneurial orientation Market orientation Knowledge management orientation Brazil abstract Enterprises from different economic sectors play a fundamental role in furthering a sustainable devel- opment in the region where it is inserted. However, it is the environmental practices of these organi- zations which determine the prompt impacts on environmental sustainability. In this sense, Cleaner Production is responsible for the decrease in natural and material resources’ consumption and energy, as well as for the systematic decrease in waste and pollutants emission. Thus, it is important to identify the strategical guides which came before Cleaner Production and, consequently, lead the enterprises to achieve a Sustainable Competitive Advantage before their competitors. In this context, this research aims at analysing the inﬂuence of strategic drivers (Entrepreneurial Orientation, Market Orientation and Knowledge Management Orientation) on Cleaner Production and the Sustainable Competitive Advan- tage. This research was about a survey applied to 1774 small and medium enterprises in Southern Brazil, in the sectors of transformation industry, commerce and services, and it was analysed by the Structural Equation Modelling, typifying it as a quantitative and descriptive research. The results show there is an intense previous inﬂuence of strategic drivers over Cleaner Production, pointing out that the correlations among the three antecedents have a high intensity, showing that the enterprises researched use the strategic drivers separately, and that, when they are combined, there is a higher chance of Cleaner Production success, with a signiﬁcant increase in Sustainable Competitive Advantage for the small and medium enterprises. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The concern raise on environmental problems forces citizens and enterprises to reduce waste, encourages goods recycling, reuse and remanufacture. Thus, environmental sustainability foments the use of environmental practices in the organizations. Among the several environmental practices there is the Cleaner Production (CP), which aims at using natural resources wisely, the innovation in the organizational processes and the minimization of waste production by the enterprises, which excels for a Sustainable Competitive Advantage (SCA) in a progressive world population and, consequently, shortage of natural resources. Within this context, the countries with economy in transition are under pressure to increase the entrepreneur activities which will allow for a rapid growth, thus minimizing the impact on nat- ural resources (Silajd zi c et al., 2015). According to De Lucia et al. (2016), since 2010, the year of the 2.0 green revolution, entrepre- neurship has been active and competitive in the globalized world, through sustainable initiatives innovation. Coherently, adequate initiatives are necessary to help promote creativity and orientation * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: juliocfguimaraes@yahoo.com.br (J.C.F. de Guimar~ aes), elianasevero2@hotmail.com (E.A. Severo), cesar.vasconcelos@terra.com.br (C.R.M. de Vasconcelos). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.11.074 0959-6526/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Cleaner Production 174 (2018) 1653e1663