Narratives on Business and Sustainability: Developing articulations and conflicts from the Organisations and Natural Environment (ONE) literature

The question of how sustainability may or may not be understood in a business context has engaged business and management scholars for more than twenty years. The issues were given a much-needed stimulus in 1995 with the... [ view full abstract ]

The question of how sustainability may or may not be understood in a business context has engaged business and management scholars for more than twenty years. The issues were given a much-needed stimulus in 1995 with the publication of a number of seminal papers in a supplement to an issue of Academy of Management Review. These papers (including Gladwin et al., 1995; Starik and Rands, 1995; Purser et al., 1995; and Hart, 1995) laid the foundations for what became known as the Organisations and Natural Environment (ONE) literature. A little over two decades later we revisit the paradigm debate that characterised this early ONE work and ask how far we have (not) come in this time.

Drawing from the work of Hoffman (2011), we observe a “logical schism” within the ONE field. Just as Hoffman argues that the literatures on climate change are guilty of talking past each other, so it seems the wider business and sustainability literature comprises a range of points of view that fail to address each other’s central assumptions. We suggest that, when business and management scholars argue about sustainable development and business, they are often really arguing about which set of assumptions are either the most reflective of the evidence and/or which are framed out of the debate.

This paper reviews and rehearses the ONE literature of the last twenty years and, setting this against the primary moves in the wider sustainability literature, seeks to identify and develop a heuristic framework through which the different paradigms might be more clearly recognised. This framework helps to identify reasons for the apparent impasse in the literature such that a mature and more productive debate may ensue

narratives of business and sustainability, sustainability, sustainable development, paradigms, Organizations and the Natural Environment (ONE), business case, beyond the business case [ view full abstract ]

narratives of business and sustainability, sustainability, sustainable development, paradigms, Organizations and the Natural Environment (ONE), business case, beyond the business case