Corporate sustainability

About: Corporate sustainability is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3517 publications have been published within this topic receiving 94075 citations.

Sustainability management emergence and integration on different management levels in smaller large‐sized companies in Austria

Abstract: Companies should integrate sustainability into all organizational units and on all management levels to contribute to sustainable development. This study explores nine smaller large‐sized companies (revenue between €50 and €300 million, at least 250 employees) from various sectors. We applied the framework of Baumgartner for corporate sustainability/corporate social responsibility empirically and used the promotor model of Witte from innovation management in the context of sustainability. The findings show that companies must have (a) top management support and (b) an open organizational culture regarding sustainable development to integrate sustainability on operational, strategic, and normative management levels. These two prerequisites need to remain stable over time, as changes in top management and staff create new challenges in sustainability implementation. The companies have mainly implemented sustainability management from the top‐down, first enlarging aspects of environmental management and human resource management and then integrating sustainability in terms of their vision and strategy. If top management does not see the need to alter the organization to address sustainability challenges, lower level managers or middle managers might take the initiative. In this case, however, only good environmental and human resources management practices are enabled. The top management blocks bottom‐up implementation efforts if they are not willing to make decisions based on new values and judgement and promote change in the organization. Our case studies show that a power promoter is essential for the integration of sustainability on all organizational levels. Presence of strong power promoter allows other promoter types to act in sustainability integration.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Strategy: A Bird’s Eye View

Abstract: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate sustainability represent the way companies achieve enhanced ethical standards and a balance of economic, environmental and social imperatives add...

Corporate uptake of the Sustainable Development Goals: Mere greenwashing or an advent of institutional change?

Abstract: The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are increasingly used by corporations for benchmarking and communicating their sustainability performance. The SDGs have several features that make them attractive for this purpose, including their universality, specificity and, in many cases, direct linkage with corporate outcomes. Corporations typically disclose their engagement strategies and outcomes voluntarily without the aid of standardized and externally verified reports. This creates a risk of corporations misusing the SDGs for “greenwashing” and “impact washing” their activities, for example through selective reporting of favorable information. Inaccurate and non-transparent disclosure can also introduce information asymmetries that distort decision-making by investors and other stakeholders. Increasing institutional change towards new measurement frameworks (such as GRI and SASB standards) and regulatory oversight to monitor disclosure (e.g., the EU’s Non-Financial Reporting Directive) is likely to improve transparency and reliability in sustainability reporting. This study critically examines the prospects of institutional changes that facilitate the integration, measurement, and reporting of corporate sustainability in general and the SDGs in particular. It also explores emerging innovations in corporate governance and regulation that seek to improve the integration of sustainability issues in corporations and financial markets.

The Impact of Corporate Sustainability and Digitalization on International Banks’ Performance

Abstract: We analyse the implications for international banks of two contemporary megatrends: corporate sustainability (CS) and digitalization. The digital environment and the availability of massive data from customers generate asymmetric information for banks to the detriment of customers, who experience individual vulnerabilities such as privacy rights. This can hinder the positive influence of digitalization in banks’ performance, with relevant managerial and political implications. In this context, the reputation generated by CS strategies can constitute a credence factor that reduces customers’ fears of opportunistic behavior and information asymmetries. We test and find support for our hypothesis over a panel data of large international banks from developed countries. Our findings shed light on the mutual reinforcement of CS and digitalization strategies in enhancing banks’ market performance and efficiency.