Mapping 70 Years of advancements in management research on sustainability

Abstract

Sustainability provides a research paradigm that, when embedded into management language, theory, and method, provides a systems approach to drawing interconnections between business activities and grand societal challenges. With mounting evidence detailing the salience of sustainable business transformations, the gap between conventional management research and practice is stark. With little formal discussion on how this gap can be bridged, this study examines the application of sustainability in top business and management literature and details opportunities for synergizing these research agendas to inform future action-oriented research. Examining 46,856 publications across 27 top management journals, this comparative analysis finds that 800 articles (1.71%) speak specifically to sustainability. Adopting the Poisson burst detection algorithm and interdisciplinary mapping techniques, we trace the evolution and positionality of sustainability discourse in management literature. Though nascent, sustainability management distinguishes itself through a lens of pragmatism versus empirics, as well as through discernible theoretical and methodological approaches. We also find that sustainability discourse is growing at a faster rate, with higher aggregate citation counts and with prominence in select sub-disciplines relative to its conventional counterparts. We conclude with a research agenda - for grand societal challenges to become actionable, a new language is required, engaging a range of disciplines, theories, and methodologies in the form of sustainability management. • Sustainability management literature is better positioned to address grand societal challenges. • This paper examines how sustainability is discussed across 27 top management journals. • Though a small subset, sustainability management literature is increasing and highly impactful. • Key linguistic, theoretical, methodological, and ontological differences are discussed. • Opportunities for future research on the utility of sustainability management are proposed.