NAVIGATING IN THE AMBIGIOUS SUSTAINABILTY LANDSCAPE: A conceptual discussion of corporate sustainability in the context of organizational decision making

The purpose of this paper is to unveil conceptual insights on how firms manage corporate sustainability, e.g. how companies integrate social and environmental issues in their business decisions. It is argued that fundamental... [ view full abstract ]

The purpose of this paper is to unveil conceptual insights on how firms manage corporate sustainability, e.g. how companies integrate social and environmental issues in their business decisions. It is argued that fundamental mechanisms in organizational decision-making processes as described by the Behavioral theory of the firm are imperative in order to understand and manage change processes for sustainability. A special emphasis is put on the role of top managers, and empirical findings from the Accenture and UN Global Compact CEO study on sustainability from 2013 are utilized in the discussion.

The empirical data indicate that engagement, dialogue and partnerships with stakeholders are key features of successful companies. On a conceptual level, this can be related to processes of organizational learning and how firms deal with uncertainty when making decisions. More specifically, the ability to reduce uncertainty linked to actions of external stakeholders seems to differentiate firms in terms of both business and sustainability performance.

Companies that outperform their peers have CEOs that emphasize investor dialogue in order to quantify and communicate the business value of sustainability. Thus, the role of investors in organizational change processes for sustainability is an interesting research topic. More generally, a promising research area is how and why stakeholder interactions differ between companies and especially how dialogue with external actors can enable the firm to tackle uncertainty and ambiguity inherent in corporate sustainability.