Organizations and sustainability: a field of knowledge

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between organizations and sustainability as a field of knowledge possible to be accessed by descriptive and thematic representations extracted from administration area published papers about the subject.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper consists in a bibliometric study. It was considered five bases of journals indexation: AOM, Emerald, Elsevier, Sage and Wiley. By judgmental sampling, 11 journals were selected, in which, at the end of data collection, 192 papers were eligible to be analyzed by content and thematic analysis techniques.

Findings

In quantitative data analysis, it was implied that the field of knowledge identity was colonized by the Euro-American axis. In qualitative analysis, it was found that the investigated field of knowledge was built by 15 thematic representations, understood by three forms of comprehensions, enabled by four different debates.

Practical implications

In a political and ideological perspective of sustainability, the socioenvironmental interests are silenced by a dominant power. Along these lines, the theme is managed, instrumentalized and commercialized by a dominant power. This paper aims to make these relations between organizations and sustainability public. The investigated field of knowledge houses a dominant discursive representation interest in respect to the investigated relations.

Originality/value

This paper innovates by considering conceptual frameworks of sustainable development and sustainability developed from contributions extracted from organizational theories, sociological reflections and political science orientations. The selection was necessary to ensure the theoretical viability of the discussion proposed by this paper.

Citation

Borim-de-Souza, R., Zanoni, B.L., Jan-Chiba, J.H.F. and Borinelli, B. (2020), "Organizations and sustainability: a field of knowledge", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 365-384. https://doi.org/10.1108/MEQ-09-2019-0203