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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework which sheds new light on how sustainability control systems (SCS) can be used in proactive strategic responses to corporate sustainability pressures.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Corporate sustainability pressures are identified using insights from institutional theory and the resource-based view of the firm.

Findings – The paper presents an integrated framework showing the corporate sustainability pressures, proactive strategic responses to these pressures, and how organizations might use SCS in their responses to the corporate sustainability pressures they face.

Practical Implications – The proposed framework shows how organizations can use SCS in proactive strategic responses to corporate sustainability pressures.

Originality/Value – The paper suggests that instead of using traditional financial-oriented management control systems, organizations need more focus on emerging SCS as a means of achieving sustainability objectives. In particular, the paper proposes different SCS tools that can be used in proactive strategic responses to sustainability pressures in terms of (i) specifying and communicating sustainability objectives, (ii) monitoring sustainability performance, and (iii) providing motivation by linking sustainability rewards to performance.

The purpose of this paper is to present the concept of global “strategic sustainability”, represented by a conceptual framework, the “spheres of strategic sustainability”. The paper examines routes, solutions and a vision for corporate strategic sustainability in the macro context of the global physical environment and the planet. This builds on previous research identifying key drivers and strategies for corporate sustainability.

The paper is conceptual in nature and underpinned by Gaia theory, ecosystems theory and the laws of thermodynamics. These three offer specific foci for sustainability research including holism, integration and synthesis: without which, sustainability research would be difficult to achieve.

The paper identifies two major domains – “corporate” and “consumer” strategic sustainability. It examines the corporate domain in which routes are identified through responses to existing globalisation, corporate strategy and corporate culture.

The paper provides insight and preliminary conceptual development towards a full theoretical model of corporate and consumer strategic sustainability. The framework will guide future conceptual and empirical investigations and broaden and deepen our understanding of how firm's can construct strategic business models that incorporate sustainability.

The paper offers a conceptual framework that develops the concept of “corporate strategic sustainability” and provides positive, practical solutions to incorporating sustainability into business models. It also challenges the current dominant socio‐economic paradigm and sets the scene for a more positive eco‐paradigm that serves the present and future needs of the planet, environment, businesses and human society.

The purpose of the paper is to present a conceptual framework and a set of conditions within which nations and business can strive to embed sustainability in corporate/national strategy. The objective is to motivate business and national leaders to do so with sustainability mindsets and strategic leadership. The pre‐conditions that will accelerate the “motivation” to do so are identified, as are interventions identified. The sphere of influence business and national leaders have to impact sustainable globalization is identified.

The approach is to focus on information in the public domain that outlines the “real” challenges faced by nations and business as they consider the need for sustainability and key issues such as “poverty and climate change”, which if not addressed could have detrimental strategic implications for the planet, business and nations. The changes that have taken place since 1982 when global leaders signed up to Agenda 21 and the relatively insignificant movement that has occurred to date is outlined to strengthen the case for quantum leaps in the short to medium term. The strategic framework recommended is one that combines the need for organizations to set a new gold standard for “corporate responsibility”, which is a “commitment to sustainable business” followed by a commitment to differentiating the business or nation on a sustainability paradigm. This is presented as means to embedding sustainability in strategy in the form of the concept of “strategic corporate sustainability”. The concept of strategic corporate sustainability is presented as a two‐step approach that initially requires both national and corporate leaders to commit to the need for sustainability by developing triple bottom line strategies. This is followed by the need to embed sustainability strategy as the corporate strategy that differentiates the nation and the business, strategically setting it apart from those that have not done so. This is presented as one of the ways to move forward to achieve the goal of sustainable globalization.

The key findings from information in the public domain of nations and business that have embedded a sustainability policy and are demonstrating that enlightened leaders who have sustainability mindsets as a primary requirement for the future are presented with the examples of General Electric and Unilever. The process of nations embedding sustainability policy, which in turn motivates business to strive for sustainable business, which finally leads to sustainable consumption, is presented in a sequential manner.

The originality of the paper is in the form of the concept of strategic corporate sustainability, which was first mooted in 2008 at Cambridge University and has since been accepted as a key subject and elective for MBA and AMP programs between 2008 and 2012 at many business schools, confirming both its validity and its originality.

This paper aims to develop a spirituality mode of firm strategic planning processes that incorporate four basic firm spirituality elements, namely, transcendence, an inexhaustible source of will, a basic and supreme power and interconnectedness and oneness, used for promoting corporate and community sustainability.

A conceptual analysis was performed.

Drawing upon prior research, this paper suggests that there are four major spiritual elements of the firm, namely, transcendence, an inexhaustible source of will, a basic and supreme power and interconnectedness and oneness. Additionally, this paper proposes that to promote long-term sustainability and survival of the firm and community, firms can place strong emphasis on firm transcendence when establishing the vision and mission statements. Moreover, firms may need to assess environmental conditions based upon an inexhaustible source of will. Furthermore, when formulating and selecting strategic alternatives, firms can utilize a basic and supreme power. Finally, firms may implement selected strategic alternatives and strategic controls with interconnectedness and oneness mentality.

This paper is one of the first studies that develop a spirituality mode of strategic planning processes focusing on both corporate and community sustainability.

Despite the scholarly attention for the integration of sustainability within business strategy and processes, little is known about how strategic orientations of companies influence this integration. Drawing on stewardship theory, this paper aims to analyse the influence of strategic orientation of companies on their environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) performance and the moderating effect of three different political models of economy (Rhine, British and American).

This paper creates a measurement for strategic orientations by using a coding scheme with a five-category evaluation matrix. The main empirical analysis is done by a fixed-effect model with a panel data set covering 179 publicly traded companies over the 2009-2016 period.

The conclusions of this paper present that – consistent over time – a stronger orientation on stewardship positively associates with higher ESG performance. Additionally, the political model of economy significantly alters the relationship indicating the effect of strategic orientation on ESG performance. The relationship is significantly stronger in the Rhine model and significantly weaker in the British model, when both compared to the American model.

The implications of this paper are vital to understanding corporate strategic orientation and its relationship to actual corporate behaviour and long-term performance. Implementing the elements of focus, motivation, commitment, support and communication linked to a stewardship orientation is fundamental to achieve higher levels of sustainability performance.

This chapter discusses the evolvement of the sustainability concept and its importance in the strategic management context. First, the authors review the development of the concept over the last century and presents the most commonly used sustainability definitions. Then, the three pillars of sustainability (economic, natural and social) are reviewed, highlighting the sustainability aspect of each pillar individually and the problems of their non-substitutability, irreversibility and non-linearity. Based on the literature review, this chapter discusses the main motives for integration of sustainability concept into the overall strategy of the company, namely compliance with regulation, response to public concern, expected competitive advantage and top management commitment. Furthermore, important distinctions between reactive and proactive approaches are presented, and the results and benefits (such as cost reductions, differentiation and added value) of proactive approaches to corporate sustainability are analyzed. Nevertheless, such benefits can only be achieved if corporate sustainability is understood and treated as a holistic concept, which is deeply embedded in the company’s strategy and is approached proactively from the interdisciplinary viewpoint, looking at all three dimensions simultaneously.

This paper expands on existing analyses of corporate energy and sustainability communication and shows the potential of evolutionary theory to study and conceptualize sustainable corporate communication as niche construction and its transformative and transformational potential.

With a qualitative content analysis of non-financial reporting of energy corporations and a deep dive into one selected case (Yin, 2013) with a two-step categorization of the sustainability related text and (n = 5) expert interviews (QCAmap, Mayring, 2019; Fenzl and Mayring, 2017), the paper reflects on alterations within the organization and in the organization–stakeholder relationships through corporate sustainability communication.

The analytical deep dive into one case of corporate sustainability communication of a multinational energy corporation shows the difference between a transformative and transformational character of corporate communication. The insights from the interviews support the assumption that corporates not only adapt to changes of environmental factors (perturbative communication) but also – however rarely – alter their spatiotemporal relationships with their external environment (relocational communication), so there is a lack of actual transformational communication.

Corporates in the (renewable) energy sector as well as industry networks like gas (infrastructure) suppliers have the potential to impact their environment (stakeholder, energy communities, etc.), change cultural patterns and norms and co-construct new socio-ecological niches through communication. The study presented gives evidence and examples for transformative corporate sustainability communication. On a conceptual level, it offers an innovative framework to understand sustainability as a guiding principle for corporate communication that will stimulate corporate communication research in the future.

The article aims to explore the transformative journey of AcmeTech Manufacturing, a fictional company influenced by real-life events, from environmental negligence to adopting sustainable and responsible business practices. By examining AcmeTech's strategic communication and sustainability initiatives, the study seeks to highlight the importance of integrating sustainability within global supply chains and the role of strategic communication in building stakeholder trust and achieving corporate sustainability goals.

This research adopts a case study methodology, focusing on AcmeTech Manufacturing as a representative example. The case study approach allows for an in-depth exploration of AcmeTech's challenges, strategies and outcomes in its pursuit of corporate sustainability. Drawing from real-life events, the study delves into the company's transformation, its commitment to transparent communication and its efforts to incorporate sustainable practices within its global supply chains.

AcmeTech Manufacturing, once criticized for its environmental negligence, has embarked on a comprehensive sustainability journey. Recognizing the erosion of stakeholder trust due to past actions, the company has prioritized transparent and strategic communication of its sustainability efforts. AcmeTech's commitment extends beyond internal changes, emphasizing the importance of its global supply chains in its overall environmental impact. By adopting a Cooperative Advantage approach, rooted in the philosophy of ubuntu, AcmeTech not only addresses its environmental challenges but also strives to become a leader in sustainable manufacturing practices.

The article offers a unique perspective by combining the concepts of strategic communication and corporate sustainability within the context of global supply chains. Using the fictional case of AcmeTech Manufacturing, influenced by real-world scenarios, the study introduces the Cooperative Advantage approach, rooted in the African philosophy of ubuntu. This approach emphasizes the interconnectedness of all stakeholders, promoting a people-centered strategy to sustainability, making the article a novel contribution to the discourse on corporate sustainability.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a comprehensive methodology and a problem-specific model for the configuration of the optimal strategic supplier portfolio in terms of traditional, performance-related objectives and sustainability targets.

To bridge the research gap, i.e., to align strategic supplier portfolio selection with corporate sustainability targets, a hybrid model of the analytic network process (ANP) and goal programming (GP) is developed. To validate the model, a case example is presented and managerial feedback is collected.

By enabling the integration of sustainability targets into strategic supplier portfolio configuration, the hybrid ANP-GP model contributes to research in the area of sustainable supply chain management. Results indicate that simplifying the model by omitting one or more details may lead to unfortunate actions.

The model has been applied using a case example in the automotive industry. To strengthen the findings, it should be examined under other terms as well.

Integrating economic, environmental, and social targets into strategic supplier portfolio configuration reduces supply risks and promotes the achievement of the sustainability goals of the purchasing company.

Strategic supplier selection counts among the decisions that have an impact on the environment and society for several years. Configuring economically rational, environmentally friendly, and socially responsible supplier bases supports worldwide efforts towards sustainable development.

Although sustainable supplier selection has gained importance in recent years, this is the first time that a comprehensive model for the determination of the optimal strategic supplier portfolio in terms of performance-related objectives and sustainability targets has been proposed.

The purpose of this paper is to provide managers with suitable strategic KPIs in decision-making processes, which aim to integrate the environmental dimension of sustainability at a business level in manufacturing organisations.

In view of the research proposal addressed, semi-structured interviews were conducted, based on theoretical milestones of the performance management system (PMS), with 48 managers that work in Italian manufacturing firms and specialise in green practices.

The authors developed a novel environmentally performed framework to adequately integrate environmental value drivers at a strategic level.

The resulting issues addressed in this paper, and their integration in the business strategy for managing environmental complexity, allows contributing, firstly, to the existing literature by suggesting the relevant key value drivers that need to be mostly studied from an accounting point of view. In addition, from these results, though their experience managers will have up-to-date key measures that could, in the future, help the integration process between the environmental aspect of the sustainability dimension and the PMS.

The results generate a robust roadmap for future analysis in this research field. Accordingly, the paper engenders a strategic alignment in the green transition process, providing scholars and practitioners with a clear view of the key sustainable drivers, metrics and potential solutions that have not been addressed to date.

Two years on from the launch of the United Nations 2030 agenda, this study aims to approach just how and why large Portuguese companies are incorporating the sustainable development goals (SDGs) into their strategies. This sets out a theoretical framework for priority levels of management and the key rationales and motivations towards the adoption of the SDGs by companies within the scope of identifying logical and mutual connections.

The proposed theoretical framework applied an empirical, qualitative study approach, deploying content analysis of the semi-structured interviews carried out.

The results convey how the responding companies are using the different management models identified for integrating the SDGs, with the strategic and operational facets of greatest relevance. There are various key reasons put forward in justification of this involvement, in particular highlighting the understanding of the 2030 agenda as an ethical and social contract followed by concerns over managing stakeholders. The results demonstrate that these main motivations influence the management level at which the SGDs undergo integration, yet they do not determine the type of integration.

The analysis of a limited number of companies and the fact that the semi-structured interviews were made with a single representative, which correspondingly reflects how the responses received convey the understandings, visions, values and responsibilities of these interlocutors.

This provides one of the first studies contributing towards understanding how and why businesses are aligning with the SDGs. At the conceptual level, this proposes a theoretical framework for analysing the underlying logics and the levels of integration into business management and how both can be interconnected. In practical terms, this clarifies how business management strategies may leverage the integration of the 2030 agenda as a mechanism for implementing corporate sustainability.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) must take on a leadership role in building a sustainable world, given their responsibility for preparing future professionals and leaders worldwide and considering the role they provide to society. To accomplish this goal, HEIs need to holistically embody sustainability in everything they develop. This study aims to help HEIs in this purpose by developing a method to integrate sustainability into the strategic planning process in these institutions.

In the first stage, the method was developed based on papers selected through a systematic literature review. The proposed method was then applied in a Brazilian HEI to validate and adjust it.

A method that adopts a participatory process to integrate sustainability into HEIs’ strategic planning was proposed.

This study provides university leaders with a simple and practical method to aid with elaborating on strategic plans for holistic sustainability integration.

This study uniquely applied a framework called “HEIs sustainability action archetypes” as the foundation for selecting sustainable objectives, goals and actions to be integrated into these institutions’ strategic planning.

The purpose of this paper is to summarize previous research findings of the relationship between reputation and sustainability at the firm level.

This research uses a systematic literature review of 306 retrieved articles that matched the search criteria. After applying filters and narrowing the sample to a total of 156 articles of a 19-year period (2000–2019) that were finally content analyzed for this study in order to identify sources, authors, theories, methodologies, and opportunities for future research.

Findings demonstrate that in most of the cases, sustainability appears to be an antecedent of corporate reputation and a tool to enhance stakeholders' acceptance and perceptions on companies' activities.

The study shows the potential of sustainability reporting as a tool to enhance corporate reputation; moreover, it also discussed the likely effect of sustainability over brand equity. This research confirms the importance of having strategic management of both corporate sustainability and reputation management. Including both reputational management and sustainability in the corporate strategy can be a potential source to create value, protect against difficulties and liabilities, and maximize business survival.

For business, establishing clear positions in relation to environmental and social issues, building collaborative global networks and authentic local relations, giving signals that reaffirm business purposes with all stakeholders, and adhering to the sustainable development agenda enhance positive corporate reputation.

In addition to answering the stated research question and in fact filling a gap in the literature, this study led us to identify 25 research questions classified in seven different areas (measurement and scales; causes and effects; longitudinal studies; geographical contexts; theory building; digital as a novel environment; and new actors and institutions).

Global palm oil production is growing rapidly, especially in Southeast Asia, with Indonesia and Malaysia as the biggest producers. Despite significant contributions to these countries’ economies, environmental and social aspects continue to be debated within this industry. The sustainability strategy is very important for the palm oil industry. This study aims to explore the sustainability strategy using six elements, namely, stakeholder engagement, governance and leadership, sustainability view and the economic, environmental and social strategies of Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil companies.

This study observes 21 Indonesian palm oil companies and 44 Malaysian palm oil companies from 2014 to 2018 with a total observation of 280 firm years. The methodology used in this study is a qualitative content analysis of six themes based on the sustainability strategy elements, which was further developed into 40 indicators. Content analysis is carried out on information published in annual reports and sustainability reports.

The study results indicate that stakeholder engagement, governance and leadership and strategic view of the palm oil companies in Indonesia and Malaysia are still likely to be weak. Palm oil companies have not demonstrated their focus on implementing economic, environmental and social strategies. Although the results indicate that there is a greater emphasis on environmental and social strategies than on economic issues, attention to both issues is still very low.

Palm oil companies need to integrate sustainability strategies in their business models and communicate them well to stakeholders to increase their competitive advantage in the palm oil industry. The government also needs to issue stricter rules and incentives to encourage companies to implement sustainability strategies.

The study results provide implications for the communities around palm oil plantations to provide better social control so that companies can implement sustainability strategies in their business processes.

This study highlights the importance of sustainability practices integrated into palm oil companies’ business models, which have not been well implemented in the palm oil industry in the world’s largest producing countries.

This paper empirically addresses the effect of coercive, normative and mimetic pressures on sustainability results, focussing on the three dimensions of the triple bottom line approach: environmental, economic and social. The mediating role of compliance, analyser or proactive corporate strategies towards sustainability is also considered.

The hypotheses developed in this study were tested using data from a sample of private companies from two industries: manufacture of chemicals and chemical products, and manufacture of basic metals.

The results confirm the role played by institutional pressures for sustainability in explaining the involvement of organisations in economic, social and environmental aspects. The mediating effect of corporate strategy is also confirmed, although only for environmental aspects.

Research into sustainability development is evolving rapidly; however, few studies have explored its diffusion amongst organisations from a triple bottom line perspective by considering the role of different current external pressures, the corporate strategy and the diverse results.

本研究擬對強制壓力、規範壓力和模仿壓力對可持續性成果的影響進行實證研究。研究的焦點放在三重底線法的三個層面上,即是環境層面、經濟層面和社會層面。研究人員亦探討尋求可持續性的承諾、分析儀和積極主動的公司戰略的中介作用。

研究人員測試其建立的各項假設; 使用的數據取自兩個企業的私人公司的樣本,它們是製造化學品和化學產品的企業,以及製造基本金屬的企業。

研究結果確認了尋求可持續性所帶來的制度壓力,在解說企業於經濟、社會和環境三方面的參與上所扮演的角色。研究結果亦確認了公司戰略的中介作用,唯這只見於環境的層面上。

探討可持續性發展的學術研究發展迅速,唯當中較少從三個基本的角度去探討可持續性發展在組織內的傳播; 本研究考慮了目前各種外來壓力、公司戰略和不同的結果所扮演的角色,以彌補這研究差距。

This study aims to examine the corporate social responsibility (CSR)-employee sustainability nexus from a legal perspective, focusing on CSR regulation in the UAE and its impact on workplace well-being, professional development and broader socioeconomic outcomes.

This study uses a narrative literature review to assess the literature, identify deficits in current knowledge and establish desk research findings on CSR’s effect on employee sustainability, particularly in the legal context of the UAE. This study uses a narrative literature review as the primary research method to analyze the CSR-employee sustainability relationship under UAE CSR legislation.

A key conclusion drawn from this study is the urgent need to transition CSR compliance from voluntary to mandatory based on legal and moral requirements. Increased transparency is needed not only on the corporate level but also to make real changes regarding employees’ sustainable activities. In this way, social responsibility will be placed into rules and regulations that will ensure corporations are able to advance initiatives that have the potential to foster employee well-being, engagement and long-term career development. This study also emphasizes the need to establish more precise and more enforceable boundaries for CSR. Corporate responsibility should no longer be seen as optional or negotiable but integrated as a fundamental aspect of business operations.

The contributions of this study are twofold. First, it deepens the insight into CSR as the system of governance, which is presented both as the voluntary management system that regulates the company’s relations with the external environment and as the legal framework enforced to address external challenges effectively. Second, it situates employee sustainability in this governance framework as a way of showing how the legal and institutional environments condition CSR-HRM-sustainability relationships. This approach not only fills critical research gaps but also provides actionable insights for policymakers and practitioners seeking to improve organizational sustainability.

This paper aims to explore the drivers and barriers in the transition of the social responsibility agenda of large, emerging economy (EE) firms from non-strategic philanthropy to strategic corporate sustainability. This study also suggests a strategy that such firms may adopt for obtaining the desired corporate social responsibility (CSR) manifestation.

The paper follows an in-depth case study approach of a large, family-managed Indian firm in a pollutant industry – Sudarshan Chemicals. The article is based on direct observation and in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, namely, senior management, employees and the local community members (villagers) in the company’s plant in Maharashtra.

The study exposes a lack of alignment between firm size (large) and firm CSR manifestation (small) as the key challenge that EE firms face in transforming their social responsibility agenda. Stuck in the mould of non-strategic corporate philanthropy, even large EE companies are not exposed to the three essential elements of the Western conceptualization of CSR, namely, stakeholder pressure, environmental concerns and integration into core business. Sudarshan’s small-firm CSR orientation can be seen as symptomatic of most Indian companies which are family-led, family-managed businesses.

Faced with strong drivers to incorporate CSR, EE firms can strategize to leap-frog from philanthropy to corporate sustainability through obtaining the desired CSR manifestation.

The significance of this paper lies in the “on the ground”, detailed and empirical study of the drivers and challenges faced by a large Indian company, as it proactively sought to transition from the philanthropy orientation towards strategic CSR/sustainability. The paper identifies the major challenge large, Indian corporates are likely to face going forward, as they respond to drivers in a globalized business environment.

This paper aims to investigate the relationships between business slack resources and environmental performance and considers the possible effects that management commitment, corporate strategy to sustainability and innovation intensity can have on such interactions.

We performed partial least squares path modeling regressions on a sample of 697 non-financial listed companies worldwide, considering a time frame of 13 years.

Operational and financial slack resources are both detrimental to environmental performance in the short term. Nevertheless, financial slack resources are useful to boost innovation that enhances environmental performance. Environmental performance improvement seems to be more a matter of managerial commitment and strategic approach towards sustainability, rather than the availability of slack resources.

Due to literature shortcomings on which effects slack resources can have on environmental performance, this paper sheds some light on the topic while also highlighting the role of management commitment, corporate sustainability strategy and innovation.

Managers should use financial slack resources in innovation activities to improve environmental performance. In doing so, they need to create retaining earnings to offset any costs using financial slack resources.

Adopting a holistic and net of endogeneity analytical perspective, this paper highlights some virtuous and critical interactions between the managerial commitment and strategic approach to sustainability, the availability of slack resources, innovation intensity and environmental performance to understand which aspects may foster or hinder the ecological transition of businesses.

Rhetoric has long had a bad reputation, as synonymous with “false and empty speech”. In the last century, rhetoric has undergone an important reappraisal, which has seen it applied also to corporate communication, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and, most recently, sustainability communication. However, the bad reputation that rhetoric has accumulated over the years continues to weigh on the legacy of the discipline, creating theoretical and methodological bias. This research represents a work that aims to map and systematize the academic literature related to rhetorical analysis in the context of CSR and sustainability communication. After a systematic literature review, a state-of-art literature mapping was carried out in order to create typological clusters of current approaches within traditional rhetoric theory, holding firm the assumption that the rhetorical discipline should be considered as a set of reasoned and structured techniques useful for corporate discourse and its persuasive effectiveness. The analysis has enlightened wide academic research regarding the study of rhetoric in corporate communications studies clustered in six typologies of topic endorsed by a specific goal that rhetoric would have in the studies.

Considering the swift adoption of innovative sustainability practices in businesses to accomplish sustainable development goals (SDGs), research on corporate sustainability has increased significantly over the years. This research intends to analyze the published literature, emphasizing the existing, emerging and future research directions on achieving the SDGs through corporate sustainability.

This research analyzed the growing trends in corporate sustainability by incorporating 2,038 Scopus articles published between 1999 and 2022 using latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modeling, bibliometrics and qualitative content analysis techniques. The bibliometric data were analyzed using performance and science mapping. Thereafter, topic modeling and content analysis uncovered the topics included under the corporate sustainability umbrella.

The findings indicate that investigation into corporate sustainability has considerably increased from 2015 to date. Additionally, the majority of studies on corporate sustainability are from the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Germany. Besides, the USA has the most collaboration in terms of co-authorship. S. Schaltegger was considered the most productive author. However, P. Bansal was ranked as the top author based on a co-citation analysis of authors. Further, bibliometric data were evaluated to analyze leading publications, journals and institutions. Besides, keyword co-occurrence analysis, topic modeling and content analysis highlighted the theoretical underpinnings and new patterns and provided directions for further research.

This study demonstrates various existing and emerging themes in corporate sustainability, which have various repercussions for academicians and organizations. This research also examines the lagging themes in the current domain.

Corporate sustainability is an evolutionary strategic management concept that has now attained much attention both in literature and practice. In the present globalization and digital age, the competitive strengths of technology management (TM) and TQM practices are widely accepted but to what extent these strategies can interact and impact the sustainability performance is unknown. The purpose of this paper is to portray the significant role of TM and TQM in pursuing corporate sustainability performance (CSP) and to investigate their integrated relationship as a common framework.

This is a survey-based empirical research that has been carried out by means of development of a survey questionnaire and its distribution to multifaceted business organizations in a developing country. Random sampling technique was used for the data collection from companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP). Response from 209 companies was found useful for analysis in the study. After confirming the questionnaire items for reliability and validity (content, criterion-related and construct validity) correlation, regression, factor analysis, path analysis and mediation analysis were performed through SPSS and AMOS to assess the composition and causal association of factors.

Statistical results show that TQM does not only significantly impact CSP but also has an impact on each CSP dimension (economical, social and environmental sustainability performance), whereas TM has an insignificant direct effect on CSP and impacts economical sustainability dimension only. From nine hypotheses, two hypotheses are rejected suggesting that TM does not directly impact social and environmental sustainability. However, when mediation analysis was run by taking TQM as a mediator, the total effect of TM on CSP found significant suggesting that TQM significantly impacts the relationship.

Paucity of response data can be a limitation for such empirical research. Due to practical limitations and risks in the data presentation of mixed cultural dimensions, the data was collected only from in country organizations. Moreover, respondents in the local country do not keenly participate in such surveys because of a gap between the industry and academia.

The study attempts to examine the practice and performance levels of CSP, TQM and TM among multi industries, thereby, extending a better understanding of the prevailing situation with regards to these concepts in a developing country. Though the results of the study confine local inferences but the findings can be generalized to other part of the world if further research is carried out with more data.

The study outcomes draw the attention of the country’s executive leadership and the industrial boards toward the implementation of the most top-ranked agenda of sustainability performance in connection to quality and TM practices. One of the major findings reveals that local organizations are primarily more focused toward economical sustainability dimension, however, benefits of economical stability can be improvised to attain environmental and social sustainability performances with desired concentration on technology advancement and TQM culture and practice.

The study is unique in the prescribed scope which has been carried out in a developing country with focus on strategic concepts, and their interacted relationship, of CSP, TQM and TM in form of proposed research framework. This framework can be used or further investigated for validation, by practitioners and managers working to lead sustainability management in respective areas.

The purpose of this paper is to build theory concerning the role of discourse in strategic renewal and green knowledge management.

The approach entails an application of discourse theory to the strategy process literature, a review of the knowledge management (KM) literature and examination of examples in the context of organizations' sustainability initiatives.

A discourse-based model of green knowledge management, with associated research propositions that address each element of strategy renewal, is developed.

The model and propositions in this paper may help to spur future management research that draws on a variety of discourse analytic tools, and advances our understanding of KM focused on environmental sustainability.

A discursive perspective on green knowledge management allows for a broader and more dynamic view of strategy process. This paper foregrounds the dynamic nature of strategy process in exploring the nature of discourse, and suggests that green knowledge management addresses a key megatrend that may form a foundation for strategic renewal.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the sustainability disclosure methods‐instruments practiced by the two most widely employed indexes/instruments (DJSI World and GRI‐G3 Guidelines). The paper suggests that the newly created triple bottom line (TBL) reporting practices need to undergo further standardization and enforcement to avoid, or give early warnings about, future corporate mismanagement that leads to socio‐economic consequences detrimental to investors and consumers in general.

This paper utilizes sample firms from the DJSI World Index and the GRI‐G3 Sustainability Guidelines membership list to draw inferences on sustainability indicators of performance. The authors compare the GRI reporting guidelines with the disclosure indicators of the DJSI World.

The authors' findings suggest that TBL reporting has made enormous progress over the last two decades. However, the two widely used sustainability reporting instruments/indexes (DJSI World and GRI‐G3 Guidelines) differ in disclosure practice‐methods and the authors recommend that further standardization and enforcement is necessary. The authors' view is that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) should become actively involved with the issue of standardization and enforcement of corporate socio‐environmental disclosures. The paper presents evidence that investors have neither rewarded nor penalized firms for adhering to or violating sustainability matters in their corporate decisions.

The authors argue for further standardization and enforcement with regard to the disclosure methods of the two widely used (GRI and DJSI) sustainability indicators in order to avoid future corporate mismanagement that leads to (systemic) economic and socio‐environmental consequences detrimental to citizen investors and consumers in general.

The research is of interest to academicians and practitioners who are interested in the theory and practice of sustainability reporting or TBL reporting. The findings suggest that this newly created disclosure instrument needs to undergo further standardization and enforcement for meaningful and accurate disclosure of economic‐social and environmental performance. The authors' view is that the SEC and FASB should become actively involved with the issue of standardization and enforcement of socio‐environmental disclosure of corporate sustainability.

We investigate the integration of the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)– based reporting thus exploring the factors that influence the adoption of the SDGs by organizations.

We analyzed the GRI dataset provided by the GRI data secretariat. We analyzed 14,308 reports provided by 9,397 organizations between 2016 and 2017.

Larger organizations are more likely to integrate the SDGs into their reporting than smaller organizations. Secondly, publicly listed firms are more likely to address the SDGs. Thirdly, industries with higher sustainability impacts are more likely to address the SDGs in their reporting. Fourthly, our data confirm a regional effect with regard to SDG reporting. Moreover, organizations that follow international sustainability guidelines and standards such as becoming a member of the GRI Gold Community or using the GRI Content Index services and having external assurance are more likely to report on the SDGs.

Corporations play an essential role in the achievement of the SDGs, which shape the future of the world's sustainable development. Nevertheless, SDGs reporting needs more research to analyze the factors that can influence it. The study contributed to the academic literature on CSR and legitimacy theory by analyzing institutional and regional factors that impact SDGs reporting.

The study provides insights about the integration of the SDGs into organizational reporting and accounting, including the adoption of the SDGs by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and the benefits of the SDGs as a framework for strategic corporate sustainability.

A global sustainability framework, such as the SDGs can be integrated into organizations sustainability reporting and accounting in a meaningful way.

This is the first study that analyzes the integration of the SDGs into GRI-based reporting. The study contributes to legitimacy theory by highlighting the factors, which contribute to the legitimacy-based adoption of the SDGs, including organizational size, being publicly listed, being from high-impact industries and certain global regions, etc. SDG reporting can help firms increase their organizational legitimacy across their stakeholders.

This study aims to investigate the effect of organizational ambidexterity (OA) and organizational green culture (OGC) on corporate sustainability (CS) while incorporating the mediating role of green innovation (GI) to provide a detailed insight into CS. The study also presents a research framework based on the Organizational Ambidexterity theory and Natural Resource-based view to explain the factors contributing to CS.

Using stratified sampling, the study collected data through survey-based empirical research from 307 textile companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) or the All-Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA). The collected data were analysed using path analysis, mediation analysis and moderation analysis through smart PLS-SEM version 4.0 to assess the composition and causal association of factors.

The study found a significant relationship between OA and OGC with CS. Furthermore, the study revealed that green innovation partially mediates the relationship between OGC and CS. The proposed research framework can be valuable for promoting and recommending actions to enhance CS.

The study on CS in the textile sector of Pakistan has limitations such as a narrow focus, cross-sectional design and reliance on self-reported data. Future research should explore additional factors, conduct longitudinal research, investigate contextual factors, scrutinize specific green innovation practices and broaden the scope of the study to include SMEs and other textile organizations.

The research framework can help senior executives to foster CS by promoting OGC, OA and GI. Practitioners and academicians can also utilize or further investigate the proposed framework for validation and to foster CS.

This study fills gaps in the existing literature by investigating the mediating effect of GI between OGC and CS. The proposed research framework provides a comprehensive understanding of the factors contributing to CS based on the Organizational Ambidexterity theory and Natural Resource-based view.

Challenges related to sustainability have increasingly become pivotal in the realm of business strategy and innovation. Nevertheless, the incorporation of sustainability principles into business strategies and innovative practices remains a subject of ongoing scholarly debate. This paper aims to undertake a thematic literature review on this theme.

Data were gathered from the Scopus, Web of Science and Science Direct databases. The final sample comprised 85 papers. For analytical purposes, this study adopted topic modeling using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) methodology.

The authors identified five dominant topics concerning the relationship between sustainability, innovation and business strategy. Through a cross-analysis of these topics, the authors theorize that a sustainable innovation strategy encompasses three complementary and interdependent dimensions: capabilities, management and firm. Building on this analysis, the authors outline a research agenda aimed at further exploration and advancement of this theme.

This review enhances the synthesis of research on the theme, prompting reflections on how companies can initiate innovative sustainable actions that align with their business strategy. Additionally, the authors identify specific elements that require improvement to enhance each of the three dimensions of sustainable innovation strategies, such as eco-efficiency, circular economy and the adoption of innovative business models oriented toward services/servitization.

By interweaving sustainability with innovation and business strategy, this study underscores the critical topics that companies and public policymakers should address to support sustainable development at the national level.

While previous literature reviews have focused on the dyadic relationships between sustainability and strategy, or sustainability and innovation, this study extends the boundaries of knowledge by integrating these three concepts into a hybrid theoretical stream.

Today, corporate sustainability is at a tipping point. With average lifespan of organizations shrinking, striving for corporate longevity and sustainability has become indispensable in this fast-paced world. Despite the growing interest in this domain, companies are struggling to define sustainability in a way that is relevant to their business. This article attempts to synthesize the extant literature and provide a conceptual perspective on corporate sustainability and sustainable business models.

Thematic literature review was done to gain an understanding of the extant literature and the ongoing debates on organizational sustainability. As the literature in context of corporate sustainability was found to be in a fluid state, a thematic review was found suitable to systematize and disclose valuable insights that open avenues for addressing sustainability concerns.

The paper attempts to throw light on the journey of organizations towards sustainability and how the context of sustainability has changed for the organizations over time. The paper discusses how companies embarked on their sustainability revolution by shifting their focus from mere compliance and philanthropy to attaining a sustainability edge and also explicates the transformation from traditional business models to sustainable business models. Finally, the research gaps are identified to pave the way for future research in the domain of corporate sustainability.

The extant literature on corporate sustainability is in a shambolic state. This creates a need to investigate what has been done and how the context of corporate sustainability is being shaped. This paper contributes to the emerging literature on sustainability by providing a conceptual perspective and highlighting the research gaps which pave the way for future research on sustainability paradigm.

Drawing on the natural resource-based view (NRBV) of the firm, this study aims to investigate the mediating role of sustainability performance management (SPM) practices in the relationship between corporate sustainability strategy (SS) and sustainability performance (SP). The conceptualization of SS and SPM practices follow the NRBV resources and capabilities to promote sustainability for competitiveness.

Data for the study were collected through a questionnaire from 114 small-medium to large organizations within environmentally sensitive industries operating in Malaysia.

The results indicate the indirect relationship between SS and SP through SPM practices. The results suggest that SS can only be realized through a broader management accounting control system (such as SPM practices) that provides information to generate, analyze and control environmental, social, economic and governance performance.

As some organizations may face their resource constraints, this study may help managers and management accountants prioritize their focus on SS and adopt the necessary SPM practices to enhance their SP.

This study sheds new light on the role of the SPM practices adopted by firms to manage their SS.

Manufacturing firms must embrace smart technologies and develop complex leadership approaches to achieve sustainability. Using the dynamic capability theory, this paper aims to examine the influence of the adoption of industry 4.0 technologies (AT) and paradoxical leadership (PL) on corporate sustainable performance (CSP) of manufacturing small-medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. Moreover, organisational ambidexterity (OA) is a mediator and strategic flexibility (SF) is a moderator in the study.

The study is a cross-sectional, quantitative study design that collected 395 usable responses through a simple random sampling technique and a close-ended structured questionnaire. Structural equation modelling (SEM) procedures were followed to analyse the data.

The statistical outcome implies that the AT significantly influence CSP and OA and mediate with CSP in the presence of OA. Moreover, PL shows a significant impact on OA, is insignificant on CSP and mediates with OA and CSP. The authors found a significant association between OA and CSP; however, SF did not provide evidence of a moderate effect.

The findings of this study clarify the role that organisational capabilities (OA, AT, PL and SF) play in fostering sustainability. The authors suggest incorporating SMEs from different geographies in other sectors by applying diverse methodologies and relevant constructs.

The result injects new perspectives into policy, managerial and individual levels. Installing OA, AT, PL and SF makes SMEs sustainable.

The empirical validation of the influence of OA and AT on CSP and the interaction of PL and SF enriches the organisational and entrepreneurial literature.

The purpose of this paper is to address issues related to better identification of strategic orientation of the firm and the impact of strategic orientation on sustainable development of the firm.

The paper presents an overview of the existing literature on strategic orientation of the firm, reexamines the major findings and fills the discovered gaps in theoretical constructs and models by new models.

In this paper, a new model of strategic orientation is proposed based on the type of relationship of aa firm with its stakeholders who are considered as suppliers of key strategic resources. Relationship between the firm and its particular stakeholder is presented on an input-output like scheme and the variants of the position of the firm towards all its stakeholders serve as foundation for determining strategic orientation types. Next, the authors present orientation of firms of different strategic types towards sustainability.

The paper outlines several novels problems for strategic management and organizational design theory.

The paper provides a novel treatment of strategic orientation and particular strategic types.

The study aims to improve the understanding of the online sustainability disclosure phenomena considering the quantity and nature of the content of the information related to sustainability disclosed in the corporate website of companies, providing evidence about the website sustainability disclosure of different size companies and characterizing the website sustainability disclosure of the Portuguese mold companies.

A content analysis methodology was used to the corporate websites of 83 companies in the sample. A direct approach was followed where the researcher is asked to read and classify the text in a previously defined category, but where the possibility of identifying new categories from the collected data is not excluded.

The information on sustainability disclosed by the mold companies is limited, whether in quantity or concerning the type of information. The information disclosed about environmental and social aspects is scarcer, being the focus more on aspects related to the economic dimension of sustainability, particularly in the areas related to products and services and customers.

The research design can be broadened to include other sustainability dissemination tools and other research methodologies, such as case studies, to provide a deeper understanding of the concerns and initiatives/practices of sustainability of mold companies.

This study contributes to the knowledge of sustainability dissemination practices in SMEs, an area of research that needs to be more explored and, in an industrial sector (molds) that have not received much attention in this area.

Based on the premise of the importance of corporate sustainability communication, the study focuses on the Internet as an information dissemination tool. It provides indications on the theme and information type that can be used to report the company's sustainability.

The purpose of this paper is to compare how the various sectors among the largest companies in Ghana have incorporated sustainability into their mission, vision and value statements.

The mission, vision and value statements of the 100 largest corporations in Ghana, known as Ghana Club 100 (GC100), were extracted from the firms’ official websites. These firms were grouped into nine sectors, and the sustainability components in the mission, vision and value statements were subjected to cross tabulation and thematic contents analysis to establish the sectoral variations.

In formulating their mission, vision and value statements, GC100 firms were more than six times likely to include economic sustainability themes than environmental sustainability themes. Even though three out of every five GC100 firms are financial institutions, the manufacturing and the extractive sectors and firms ranked 1st−20th are three times likely to incorporate all the sustainability dimensions (i.e. economic, social and environmental) into their mission, vision and value statements. Firms in the financial sector and those ranked 80th−100th were more likely not to publish either a mission, vision or value statements online.

This study reveals the magnitude of the strategic pronouncements such as mission, vision and value statements of large firms in emerging economies and how they are aligned with sustainability. This could serve as a basis for formulating guidelines to reinforce efforts that contribute to corporate sustainability.

Research on how large firms align sustainability into their mission, vision and value statements is not a new agenda, but fragmented in the context of the emerging economies. The novelty is that this study addresses this gap and contributes to this topic from a sectoral comparative perspective of largest organization in Ghana, an emerging economy.

The purpose of this commissioned paper is to offer some personal reflections on sustainability within the hospitality industry.

The paper opens by identifying sustainability as a teasing paradox for the hospitality industry and a short discussion of the characteristics of sustainability. It then explores the growing interest in corporate sustainability and offers a review of the range of academic research into sustainability within the hospitality industry literature. More generally, the authors suggest three fundamental sets of issues that currently face the industry, namely, defining sustainability within the industry, materiality and independent external assurance and sustainable consumption and the industry’s commitment to continuing economic growth.

In addressing these three sets of issues, the authors make a number of suggestions. First that definitions of sustainability within the hospitality industry can be interpreted as being constructed around business imperatives rather than an ongoing commitment to sustainability. Second that materiality and external assurance are not treated comprehensively within the industry, which undermines the credibility of the sustainability reporting process. Third that the concept of sustainable consumption and any critique of the industry’s commitment to economic growth are conspicuous by their absence in the both the research literature on sustainability and in sustainability reporting within the industry.

The paper suggests that the hospitality industry may need to examine how it defines sustainability, to extend its sustainability reporting to embrace materiality and external assurance and to address the issues of sustainable consumption and continuing economic growth if it is to demonstrate a worthwhile and enduring commitment to sustainability.

The paper provides some accessible personal reflections on sustainability within the hospitality industry and, as such, it will be of interest to academics, students and practitioners interested in the hospitality industry and more widely within the business and management community.

This conceptual paper aims to investigate the link between open innovation (OI) processes (outside-in, inside-out and coupled) and strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) focusing on shared value creation. In doing so, it aims at progressing the theory of OI and CSR.

The paper is of theoretical character. It adopts the contribution proposed by CSR (strategic CSR and corporate social innovation) and OI literature and is organized around two research questions: What is the link between strategic CSR and OI processes (outside-in, inside-out and coupled)? How do companies can capture value from their open corporate social innovation processes? Stakeholder theory has been chosen as a theoretical framework for the study.

The paper identifies four themes describing the relationship between strategic CSR and OI: employee engagement, external stakeholder engagement, CSR-driven selective revealing and open approach to corporate social innovation. The analysis of the themes led to the formulation of four propositions serving as building blocks for a conceptual model of open shared value creation process. The model explains bidirectional relationship between strategic CSR and OI processes and presents the mechanisms, in which firm by implementing OI practices to its CSR strategy captures the proportion of value from a value created for its stakeholders.

This is one of the first, if not the first, papers discussing the link between CSR and three OI processes.

The purpose of the study is to understand the relationship between family-driven innovation and the incorporation of corporate sustainability in German family firms.

The study conducted 26 interviews with 22 German family firms. Thematic analysis was undertaken on the collected data resulting in five major themes.

The study identified five main themes of corporate sustainability-oriented innovation in family firms, which include measuring corporate sustainability performances, building corporate sustainability-oriented infrastructure, stabilizing/optimizing operations, enhancing operational flexibility/independence and knowledge management and development. The study also provides an activity-based guide for family firms to use innovation to achieve corporate sustainability goals and present the findings’ implications for policymakers.

The present study is the first study to empirically investigate the relationship between family-driven innovation and the incorporation of corporate sustainability at each of the corporate sustainability maturity levels.

Drawing insights from institutional theory, this paper aims to examine whether and to what extent banks have reconfigured their management control systems (MCSs) in response to growing institutional pressures towards sustainability, understood as environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.

The authors conducted an exploratory study at the three largest Italian banking groups to shed light on changes made in MCSs to account for ESG issues. The analysis is based on 12 semi-structured interviews with managers from the sustainability and controls areas, as well as from other relevant operational areas particularly concerned with the integration process of ESG issues. Additionally, secondary data sources were used. The Malmi and Brown (2008) MCS framework, consisting of a package of five types of formal and informal control mechanisms, was used to structure and analyse the empirical data.

The examined banks widely implemented numerous changes to their MCSs as a response to the heightened sustainability pressures from regulatory bodies and stakeholders. In particular, with the exception of action planning, the results show an extensive integration of ESG issues into the five control mechanisms of Malmi and Brown’s framework, namely, long-term planning, cybernetic, reward/compensation, administrative and cultural controls.

By identifying the approaches banks followed in reconfiguring traditional MCSs, this research sheds light on how adequate MCSs can promote banks’ “sustainable behaviours”. The results can, thus, contribute to defining best practices on how MCSs can be redesigned to support the integration of ESG issues into the banks’ way of doing business.

Overall, the findings support the theoretical assertion that institutional pressures influence the design of banks’ MCSs, and that both formal and informal controls are necessary to ensure a real engagement towards sustainability. More specifically, this study reveals that MCSs, by encompassing both formal and informal controls, are central to enabling banks to appropriately understand, plan and control the transition towards business models fully oriented to the integration of ESG issues. Thereby, this allows banks to effectively respond to the increased stakeholder demands around ESG concerns.

The study aims to enhance our understanding of strategizing sustainable palm oil at company level and to bridge the gap between strategy formulation and implementation. In this case-based study, the way a food company is tackling the challenges faced during the promotion and incorporation of sustainable palm oil into core business strategy is explored. By taking a strategy-as-practice approach, this research sheds light on the microlevel activities and the role of formulated plans, implemented actions and engagement in activities.

An ethnographic case study was carried out using participant observation, semi-structured interviews, informal interviews and documentary review.

The findings demonstrate the complexity of implementing a sustainability strategy for a controversial commodity such as palm oil in supply chains. External pressure was one of the most important drivers for taking action regarding environmental and social sustainability issues. Moreover, formulating and implementing supply chain strategies for sustainable palm oil required effective communication and collaboration between different departments within the organization.

Although important insights were obtained through this six-month long ethnographic case study, additional valuable information could have been obtained if the research had been carried out for longer.

The paper includes implications for strategizing sustainability at company level from a strategy-as-practice perspective.

Through this study, a better understanding of the challenges faced from the downstream perspective in sustaining food supply chains can be obtained.

In this chapter, we explore the theory of Strategy-as-Practices (S-as-P) (Jarzabkowski & Spee, 2009; Satyro, Sacomano, Contador, Almeida, & Giannetti, 2017), by looking into praxis, practices and practitioners, for better understanding how sustainability can be seen as part of the competitive advantage achieved by an integrated business strategy.

The United Nations has formulated the importance of the Sustainable Development Goals. Within the tourism and hospitality industry, although governmental organizations continue to play an important role for these initiatives, increasing number of industrial stakeholders are contributing by having sustainable oriented goals integrated in their business strategy. Traditionally, companies incorporate Corporate Social Responsibility programmes into their business strategy (Frynas & Yamahaki, 2016). However, these corporate responsibility programmes have not always been integrated as part of their strategic development. Moreover, due to the absence of the clear strategic sustainable goals, these corporate responsible practices lead to unclear integration of stakeholders' roles and their impacts to the industry.

Several theoretical approaches are possible to analyses the behaviour of practitioners leads to sustainable practices (Satyro et al., 2017). With this chapter, we show how S-as-P theory can be used in analyzing the implementation of corporate responsibility within business strategies the hospitality industry.

Corporate sustainability is recognised as a moral imperative based on the notion that companies are obliged to meet social expectations and have ethical integrity. Further, the concept of corporate sustainability is perceived as the expression of ethical obligations upheld by managers that will be reflected in financial and non-financial reporting and responsible decisions. So, responsible companies are unlikely to be part of manipulation practices like earnings management. The present study aims to analyse how corporate sustainability practices influence the earnings management practices of non-financial Indian companies.

The sample comprises 113 companies included in Nifty 200 for a time span of 12 years. The study measured earnings management using the modified Jones model and corporate sustainability using the environmental, social and governance disclosure score provided by the Bloomberg database. The study employed panel data regression to examine the relationship.

The outcome indicates that the relationship between corporate sustainability and earnings management is not statistically significant. The insignificant relationship may be due to the underdevelopment of sustainability practices, as the majority of the companies are not prioritising sustainability but reporting to meet regulatory requirements. The findings suggest that Indian companies must seriously consider sustainability practices instead of doing the same for mandatory requirements to enjoy the benefits of sustainability.

To the best of the researcher’s knowledge, this is one of the initial studies that examined the link between corporate sustainability and earnings management in the Indian context.

This chapter investigates the relevance of sustainability accounting practice (SAP) in the actualisation of the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs) 2030. Whilst the SDGs appear general, broad and far-reaching, the sustainable development agenda (SDA) impliedly places responsibilities on member nations to evolve strategies that will ensure the achievement of the SDGs in their respective countries in accordance with national circumstances and peculiar challenges. This brings to bear the need to consider measures to translate the SDGs to realities, especially in developing countries. We use a structured questionnaire to collect data on the application of SAP from publicly listed manufacturing companies in Nigeria. Secondary data on economic performance were obtained from the annual reports of companies for 5 years (2014–2018). Structural Equation Modelling and Mann-Whitney test were applied to analyse data. Result suggests that whilst the implementation level of SAP by companies is generally moderate, internalities/‘pull factors’ such as market orientation and deliberate strategy formulation significantly determine the sophistication level of SAP. The insignificant effect of the externalities/‘push factors’ (i.e. environmental uncertainty, structure of ownership and control, and intensity of competition) on SAP suggests that external pressure on companies to implement sustainability initiatives is weak. We also find that extensive usage of SAP can sustain economic performance in the long run. The chapter provides empirical evidence that manufacturing companies extensively implementing SATs can sustain economic performance and would likely have enough economic resources to implement some initiatives that are fundamental to the actualisation of the SDGs 2030. The chapter contributes to the sparse literature on sustainability practice in developing countries, and incrementally adds to knowledge on the factors driving SAP in a jurisdiction characterised by lax regulatory framework and weak institutional apparatus on sustainability. As evident in our findings, SAP engenders sustainable economic performance.

This paper aims to explore service learning with its insights in empowering corporate responsibility awareness. Attempts to build corporate responsibility widely in incorporating into the sustainability engagement could be demonstrated in fostering the transformative experiential learning with extensive evaluation and reconfiguration of existing programs. The focus on enhancing the learning experience in emphasizing the community engagement would be applied with strengthening the actual performance in encompassing the ability raising awareness about the environmental issues.

The approach used in this paper refers to develop the conceptual framework about the service learning with various strategies to give insight on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Incorporating the approach of conceptualizing the basis of service learning, key consideration was generated into particular enhancement of service learning in contributing to the CSR.

The finding reveals that getting benefit to serving into the community engagement may take beneficial outcomes with its valuable insight to assist in the progress of program designed with associating to enhance corporate responsibility and sustainability awareness. The advancement of the social control among the companies would be deployed within empowering service learning for CSR where sustainability awareness-based community service as embodiment of CSR should be enhanced through nurturing corporate responsibility-based transformative experiential learning. Moreover, this initiative refers to an attempt to strengthen the basis of corporate responsibility and sustainability awareness-based experiential learning, which could enlarge creative thinking with envisioning sustainability and corporate responsibility.

This study is expected to contribute to the experiential learning to enhance the sustainability within the learning setting engaged in achieving what to contribute to the environmental concern. In creating the situation where the balance between serving and learning can be achieved, attempts to encourage them in joining the service learning program should be collaborated with orienting both personal and social community oriented comprehensively in underlying the responsibility awareness, the sustainability-based moral values. These aim to enhance the understanding stage about the care for protecting the environmental concern within learning experience with the goal to produce responsible awareness especially by economic agents such as shareholders, managers, regulators and active participants to promote sustainable benefits.

This study aims to investigate corporate governance mechanisms affecting environmental and social sustainability accounting practice (SAP). Four internal (quality of information technology [QIT], market orientation, business strategy and structure of accounting department) and two external (environmental uncertainty and market competition) governance mechanisms were examined.

The population of the study is comprised of 56 publicly listed manufacturing companies on the Mainboard of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Data were collected using a questionnaire which was completed by senior finance personnel in each company in the sample. Structural equation modelling, logistic regression and quantile regression analysis were used to analyse data.

The results show that the extent to which Nigerian companies have implemented SAP is moderate. The authors find that the level of SAP implementation is significantly associated with market orientation and business strategy, but not with the QIT and structure of accounting department. The results also show that both external corporate governance mechanisms (i.e. environmental uncertainty and intensity of competition) have no significant effect on SAP.

The insignificant influence of external corporate governance mechanisms on SAP corroborates the contention that external pressure on companies to implement sustainability initiatives in developing countries is weak.

This study contributes to the literature on sustainability in developing countries and incrementally adds to knowledge on the corporate governance mechanisms driving SAP in jurisdictions characterised by lax regulatory framework and weak institutional apparatus on sustainability.

The purpose of this paper is to show the relevance attributed to sustainability management control tools (SMCTs) and their real use. Mainly, this study aims to shed light on the approaches, motivations and difficulties encountered in SMCTs adoption by the most sustainable Italian companies, as well as their effectiveness.

Using a pre-structured qualitative survey method, the authors grasped information about external and internal dimensions of sustainability management in light of institutional and resource-based view theories. Data are elaborated with two methods: a regime analysis to assess the relevance of SMCTs and a descriptive analysis to investigate the “aim”, “which” and “how” of the SMCTs' use by companies listed in sustainability indices.

Informal SMCTs prevailed over formal ones. There is a discrepancy between attention paid to some tools praised in the literature and their knowledge and use. In addition, a significant gap exists between what is desired and what is achieved in terms of effectiveness. Further, although sustainability management is primarily oriented towards the external perspective, SMCTs can be key to improving both the disclosure and management of sustainability.

The criteria for the selection of the sample resulted in a small number of analysed companies, which allowed us to gain insight into what happens inside the listed Italian companies in the most important sustainability indices. These companies have sustainability-oriented management, which also probably safeguards their advantage linked to inclusion in these indices.

This paper provides food for thought for companies engaged in non-financial disclosure and for those who aim to implement SMCTs. It shows the need to reinforce formal sustainability control tools, also through dissemination of major knowledge about the implementation of these tools, and to encourage sponsorship from top levels of management.

Compared with SMCT research using a theoretical or case study approach, this study uniquely undertakes extensive research on the perceived effectiveness of SMCTs in achieving sustainability goals and the difficulties in implementing them, thereby highlighting a discrepancy between some tools emphasised in the literature and those infrequently used in sustainability-oriented companies.

This paper examines the socio-ecological co-evolution and transformation of organic pioneers and the organic food market from a politically structuring actor perspective. It aims to identify strategies and activities used to contribute to the change of structures in the organic market and how the companies, in turn, reacted to the structural influence of the changing environment to position their company successfully in the market.

This study is based on interviews with four managing directors who were responsible over several decades for the strategic corporate management of the pioneer companies they founded as (or converted to) organic. Content analysis was used to analyse the data.

Strategic challenges regarding building up, maintaining and using resources, shaping actor constellations, and professionalising management are explained. The analysis demonstrates that also small pioneers have the possibilities and scope to influence and change markets and structures.

The results are significant for developing sustainable transformation strategies for markets, considering the interaction of the micro and meso-levels over time and the role of small businesses that might be struggling with growth and loss of values. The study answers recent calls in the literature to empirically investigate sustainability transformations from a practice perspective and gain insights into the roles of corporate actors.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is viewed as a differentiating strategy that wins over stakeholders’ confidence. Due to the potential strategic and positive effects on businesses, the study of CSR and its relationship to competitiveness has gained relevance. While studies have examined the impact of CSR activities on firm competitiveness, the findings so far remain contradictory. Further research on the underlying processes/mechanisms that explain how CSR contributes to competitiveness remains scarce. Accordingly, this study aims to look into the link between CSR and competitiveness with a focus on Asian business and management studies.

By using a bibliometric approach, this paper aims to provide a review of the state-of-the-art research on the linkage between CSR and competitiveness in Asian context. The sample for this research included all 538 studies from the period of 2001–2023 in the Scopus database. A bibliometric study included both co-occurrence and co-citation analysis.

The study’s findings made significant contributions by identifying seven distinct clusters of co-occurrences. Using co-citation, three journals-based co-citation clusters and another three authors-based co-citation clusters are identified. The findings show how processes/mechanisms such as – accountability, multi-stakeholder dialogue/engagement, resource generation, emphasizing sustainable development goals and emerging markets, redefining strategy, cultivating value/vision and CSR leadership – are increasing in importance.

Overall, the authors argue that CSR-led competitiveness is indeed one of the key drivers for improved sustainability performance of a firm.

Based on findings, a conceptual framework has been proposed highlighting different processes and mechanisms that influence the CSR-led competitiveness – outcomes relationship.

This study aims to investigate how the interplay of multiple strategic orientations influences the growth-based performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The authors have specifically examined the direct and complementary effects of multiple strategic orientations [i.e. entrepreneurial orientation (EO), market orientation (MO) and sustainability orientation (SO)] on firm performance.

The data have been collected from 410 SMEs operating in Pakistan.

The results revealed that the multiple strategic orientations (EO, SO and MO) have positive direct as well as complementary effects on SMEs' growth-based performance. Specifically, the joint effects of EO and MO were shown higher than other combinations and complementarities. Moreover, the direct effect of SO is found far lesser than the joint implementation of SO with either EO or MO.

This study provides key insights into corporate sustainability, strategic orientations and SME performance literature. The implications for theory, practice, policy and future research are discussed.

Environmental sustainability is one of humanity's most daunting issues and continues to garner attention from researchers and policymakers. The substantial corpus of work on sustainability has focused on broader sustainable development goals (SDGs), with occasional discourse on the progress of environmental issues within the SDGs. In this issue, we draw precise attention to environmental SDGs and their implementation progress at country and company level, underscoring the actions required to accomplish Agenda 2030. The contributions to this special issue provide incremental knowledge of the state of progress made towards accomplishing Agenda 2030, as well as advance our understanding of corporate environmental research particularly in developing countries. We report a concise viewpoint of the chapters featured in this special issue of Advances in Environmental Accounting and Management on the progress and prospects of environmental sustainability and Agenda 2030. Our review and summary highlights crucial findings from each contribution, the implications of such findings for policymakers, and areas for immediate and future actions pertinent for the accomplishment of the Agenda. The overarching outcome from the chapters featured in the special issue suggests a positive change in the appetite for sustainable practices at both country and company level. Yet, the practicality and approach to attain the goals set by United Nations Agenda 2030 is still a distance away. We believe insights from chapters in this issue would provide pragmatic support to managers and governments in developing and implementing strategic actions to confront the growing yet emerging state of environmental SDGs accomplishment at country and company levels.