Corporate Sustainability Activities Research Articles

Activating the sustainable consumer:The role of customer involvement in corporate sustainability

AbstractTackling grand challenges and making sustainable development a reality through sustainable consumption crucially depends upon both companies’ activities as well as individuals’ consumption choices. In opinion polls, many consumers claim to favor sustainable products over conventional ones. However, a large gap remains between their stated purchasing intentions and actual decisions, posing a challenge for companies in predicting product demand and strategically managing their product portfolios. In this study, we develop a conceptual framework to demonstrate how companies can encourage sustainable consumption behavior among their customers by involving them in their corporate sustainability (CS) activities. We introduce psychological ownership as the underlying mechanism explaining how customer involvement in CS activities translates into changes in their consumption choices. We further argue that the link between customer involvement and psychological ownership depends on the type of a company’s CS—that is, whether CS is embedded in or peripheral to the company’s core business. The results from three experiments, including one field experiment conducted in collaboration with a fashion retailer and involving real customer purchase decisions, support our theorizing. The findings reveal the power of customer involvement as a marketing tool in promoting sustainable consumption.

How Firm’s Commitment to ESG Drives Green and Low-Carbon Transition: A Longitudinal Case Study from Hang Lung Properties

Sustainability in business is a subject of growing interest to investors, stakeholders, and companies for overcoming uncertainty. However, it is also questioned with “is this business approach is finance worthy”, how does a firm’s commitment to ESG translate into tangible outcomes that benefit investors? In this paper, textual analysis is applied to the 10-year sustainability report from 2012 to 2021 released by Hang Lung Properties (HLP) to empirically explore its ESG (environmental, social, and governance)-related strategy, initiatives, actions, and outcomes. Employed with a “commitment-action-outcomes” framework, this firm-based longitudinal case study on ESG investigates how HLP deploys and implements corporate sustainability activities, in order to increase its profits as well as stock returns. Our empirical evidence indicates that the firm’s ESG commitment leads to its green and low-carbon transition. Further, it identifies three key enablers of ESG commitment—ESG integration and evolvement, high-intensity ESG effort, and technological innovation—that can spur low-carbon transition and achieve long-term value. This paper contributes to the literature in the following ways. Firstly, it sheds light on the effectiveness of ESG commitments in promoting sustainable business practices. Secondly, it enriches the understanding to build an enterprise’s resilience and self-reliance via ESG initiatives in the face of uncertainty. Lastly, it makes an important methodological contribution by constructing a new employed textual analysis for the ESG research domain.

A Critique on Theoritical Framework for Adoption of Corporate Sustainability Practices: Iintegrating Institutional Motives, Stakeholder Motives, and Managerial Motives

Purpose: This literature review seeks to advance knowledge of the area of theories on motivation for corporate sustainability efforts as it has been researched by earlier experts. Corporate sustainability has gained more attention in academics and business since the 1990s. Still, there is a lack of literature in the area of motivational theories for corporate sustainability. This particular review paper offers an analysis of 30 articles from journals covering the area of business and management that were published between 2002 and 2022. The paper provides a summary of the growth of corporate sustainability, as well as various definitions, and theories that have been put into practice to motivate corporate sustainability efforts.
 
 Method: The researcher employed a literature search strategy, drawing from prior review articles, to investigate corporate sustainability theories and related studies by reputable academics. The electronic search focused on business and management publications, using keywords like sustainability and motivating theories for corporate sustainable adoption. The search was limited to the most recent two decades. Each identified work underwent screening to assess its essential relevance to motivational theories of corporate sustainability.
 
 Findings: The results show that the field of corporate sustainability is still developing and that several theories have been employed to measure the motives of corporate sustainability. We believe that despite the similarities and connections between the three theories: institutional theory, stakeholder theory, and managerial motives, they are complementary rather than competing. Most significantly, they can be combined with and connected to corporate sustainability activities to provide a multi-theoretical view of the motivations behind such practices.
 
 Research Implication: This study provides a theoretical framework that can be applied to studies of corporate sustainability, particularly when attempting to understand why organizations motivate to adopt corporate sustainability.
 
 Origonality/Value: This theoretical model can be used as a conceptual foundation for empirical research on the drivers of corporate sustainability initiatives in a variety of settings. To gain a deeper comprehension of corporate sustainability adoption, it makes an effort to gain valuable insights into more than one single theory.

A Critique on Theoritical Framework for Adoption of Corporate Sustainability Practices: Iintegrating Institutional Motives, Stakeholder Motives, and Managerial Motives

Purpose: This literature review seeks to advance knowledge of the area of theories on motivation for corporate sustainability efforts as it has been researched by earlier experts. Corporate sustainability has gained more attention in academics and business since the 1990s. Still, there is a lack of literature in the area of motivational theories for corporate sustainability. This particular review paper offers an analysis of 30 articles from journals covering the area of business and management that were published between 2002 and 2022. The paper provides a summary of the growth of corporate sustainability, as well as various definitions, and theories that have been put into practice to motivate corporate sustainability efforts.
 
 Method: The researcher employed a literature search strategy, drawing from prior review articles, to investigate corporate sustainability theories and related studies by reputable academics. The electronic search focused on business and management publications, using keywords like sustainability and motivating theories for corporate sustainable adoption. The search was limited to the most recent two decades. Each identified work underwent screening to assess its essential relevance to motivational theories of corporate sustainability.
 
 Findings: The results show that the field of corporate sustainability is still developing and that several theories have been employed to measure the motives of corporate sustainability. We believe that despite the similarities and connections between the three theories: institutional theory, stakeholder theory, and managerial motives, they are complementary rather than competing. Most significantly, they can be combined with and connected to corporate sustainability activities to provide a multi-theoretical view of the motivations behind such practices.
 
 Research Implication: This study provides a theoretical framework that can be applied to studies of corporate sustainability, particularly when attempting to understand why organizations motivate to adopt corporate sustainability.
 
 Origonality/Value: This theoretical model can be used as a conceptual foundation for empirical research on the drivers of corporate sustainability initiatives in a variety of settings. To gain a deeper comprehension of corporate sustainability adoption, it makes an effort to gain valuable insights into more than one single theory.

The impact of corporate sustainability performance on advertising efficiency

Over the years several studies have reported a significant waste of advertising budget, a finding which calls for strategies to increase advertising efficiency. While some factors, such as brand extensions or an optimal marketing mix, have already been identified as relevant determinants of advertising efficiency, changes in consumer psychographics have so far been neglected. The current study fills this gap by investigating how the emerging awareness and demand for corporate sustainability serve as a contextual factor leveraging or hindering advertising efficiency. Furthermore, we investigate how advertising efficiency has changed across various industry sectors from 2010 to 2019. A two-step procedure was applied to analyze the secondary data of 1950 observations from 195 US firms in five industry sectors over a period of 10 years. The resulting time series of firm-specific multi-directional efficiency scores confirms that advertising efficiency varies over time, justifying the relevance of a dynamic perspective for analyzing advertising efficiency. Furthermore, in support of our main claim, the investigation of the relationship between advertising efficiency and the environmental, social and governance performance of firms over time using a time-fixed effects panel regression and a three-level hierarchical regression model confirm the significant impact of corporate sustainability performance on advertising efficiency. Interestingly, this effect varies among different industry sectors and not all corporate sustainability activities impact advertising efficiency to the same extent. The results not only emphasize the relevance of corporate sustainability performance in increasing advertising efficiency, but also guide marketers on strategic marketing decisions related to the allocation of advertising budget.

Do Lenders Value a Corporate Sustainability Structure?—Evidence from the Cost of Bank Loans

In response to pressures placed on a firm by its stakeholders, managers may initiate various corporate sustainability activities. In such cases, they need to make decisions not only about the level of sustainability commitment, but also about the way to structure it. There are numerous ways to structure corporate sustainability activities with different financial consequences. In this paper, we investigate the separate and joint effects of the corporate sustainability level and the corporate sustainability structure on a firm’s bank borrowing cost. We test our predictions by conducting multivariate regression analysis on a sample of 1417 US bank loan facilities over the period 2006–2011. We find evidence that high-quality borrowers with a high level or diversified structure of sustainability activities benefit from lower loan interest rates. Also, our analysis of the joint effects shows that only high-quality borrowers with a high level and diversified sustainability activities enjoy lower bank loan costs. Overall, these results reveal that lenders value how firms structure their sustainability activities. Therefore, they have important implications for managers and bankers.

Corporate Sustainability in Family Firms – a systematic literature review and research agenda

The literature on corporate sustainability in family firms has been inconsistent and heterogeneous. The aim of this systematic literature review was to build a conceptual framework that structures and guides corporate sustainability findings. A systematic literature search was performed in four databases using search terms related to various corporate sustainability concepts and yielded 1348 published papers on corporate sustainability. Based on rigorous selection criteria, 60 empirical articles are analyzed abductively (by deconstructing each study into corporate governance, signaling and stakeholder theory). The results show that family firms overperform non-family firms regarding corporate sustainability activities. Moreover, family influence in management strengthens corporate sustainability performance, which increases the firm’s value. Family firms also profit from corporate sustainability disclosure regarding economic and non-economic measures like reputation, corporate sustainability engagement fosters networks among stakeholders. This study structures the field of sustainability research in family business and provides a theoretical framework that guides practitioners and future research.

Sustainability Communications and Corporate Brand Associations

Executives are increasingly opting to undertake initiatives intended to benefit the natural environment (E), society (S), and/or corporate governance (G); however, the implications of the various messaging vehicles used to convey such corporate sustainability activities on the buying public’s perceptions about the company are not fully understood. This article addresses this knowledge gap by explicating how select paid, owned, and earned ESG communications can impact brand perceptions about the selling firm. Specifically, we advance research propositions grounded in the marketing communications literature regarding the impact of firm- and stakeholder-generated ESG communications on a set of cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes that can augment collective corporate brand associations. Furthermore, we describe interesting research opportunities regarding the synergy between firm-generated communications (FGC) and stakeholder-generated communications (SGC) in shaping buyers’ perceptions about the selling firm.

An empirical assessment of the sustainable development goals compass based on consumer sentiment

PurposeThis research aims to provide an empirical assessment of consumer sentiment towards corporate sustainability practices in the context of developing countries, specifically Egypt.Design/methodology/approachA survey was deployed to measure the importance of corporate sustainability activities to consumers.FindingsThe results demonstrate that consumers are concerned with all the measured dimensions of corporate sustainability practices, yet some of the dimensions are more critical to them than others.Originality/valueBy providing an overview of how consumers' purchase behavior is affected by corporate sustainability practices, this research contributes to knowledge on understanding more about sustainable consumer behavior in developing countries, which is scarce. Moreover, this research goes further by segmenting sustainable consumers into groups based on their sustainability concerns.

The Rise of Emergent Corporate Sustainability: A Self-Organised View

Escalating climate crisis activism highlights the potential of self-organised approaches in sustainability to address the disconnect between corporate sustainability activities and globally declining ecological systems. This paper argues that corporate sustainability is a co-evolutionary process of emergence which may enable organisations to address this disconnect by creating a context supportive of emergence within the organisation rather than reacting to pressures from outside. An exploratory mixed-methods case study was used to explore how corporate sustainability emerged in two financial services institutions. This article develops the idea of corporate sustainability as a co-evolutionary process of emergence and presents a framework to assist organisations to cultivate sustainability. It adopts a complexity view and posits that reductionism associated with Newtonian thinking has contributed to the sustainability issues faced by humanity. This study suggests that the paradigmatic assumptions that have contributed to the sustainability crisis must be interrogated to create an environment which is conducive to the emergence of corporate sustainability. Through examining corporate sustainability as an emergent process, this paper sheds light on how businesses can foster conditions in which a self-organised response to sustainability challenges is distributed across the organisation whilst being embedded in the containing system.

Corporate sustainability reporting in Japanese multinational enterprises: a threat to local legitimacy or an opportunity lost for corporate sustainability practices?

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate whether Japanese manufacturing multinational enterprises (MNEs) maintain local legitimacy in their host countries through adequate informing of local stakeholders with targeted corporate sustainability (CS) reporting.Design/methodology/approachThe paper first identified specific CS activities that were considered important in four Association of Southeast Asian Nations host countries, through semi-structured interviews with 58 participants of 16 Japanese manufacturing MNEs. The degree of establishment of local legitimacy was then measured through the number of references made to these CS activities and other activities specific to the respective host countries in the CS reports of the MNEs across a five-year period.FindingsThe majority of MNEs in the sample were under-reporting items of specific interest to localhost country stakeholders potentially undermining the MNEs’ image. There were found to be differences on the topics published in CS reports compared to those mentioned in the interviews indicating potential issues with regard to internal communication between the subsidiary and headquarters offices.Originality/valueA novel approach is taken to investigate the degree of local legitimacy established by MNEs through comparing the contents of interviews held at subsidiaries with their respective CS reports. This paper highlights the importance of considering MNE subsidiaries when addressing Target 12.6 of the Sustainable Development Goal 12: responsible consumption and production.

SUSTAINABILITY-DISCLOSURES AND FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE: SHARIAH COMPLIANT VS NON-SHARIAH- COMPLIANT INDONESIAN FIRMS

We investigate the impact of sustainability-performance disclosure (SPD) on firmperformance on a cross-industry sample of 71 firms over the period 2011-2018. Wealso compare the relationship between shariah-compliant firms (SCFs) and non-shariah-compliant firms(NSCF). To control for possible issues of unobservedheterogeneity, endogeneity and autocorrelation, we use the system generalizedmethod of moments approach. We found that disclosure of sustainability performanceincreases a firm’s financial performance. Firms which disclose information on theirsustainability practices were found to have higher earnings on assets and equity,which clearly supports the argument of information asymmetry. In the comparison ofshariah-compliant and non-shariah-compliant firms, it was found that SCFs are at anadvantage by being shariah compliant and that disclosure of sustainabilityperformance increases the financial performance of such firms, whereas for non-shariah-compliant firms, the impact was found to be negative. One of the mainfindings from the research is that while firms’ involvement in corporate sustainabilityactivities is encouraged, they also need to disclose any related information to theirstakeholders, general public to capitalise on this investment, in return for a goodreputation and consider going shariah complaint. Our study further recommends thatthe management of firms in Indonesia should focus on shariah compliance andconsider sustainability-practice and sustainability-performance disclosures with apositive mindset, recognising them as means of gaining an advantage rather than asan obligation.

Public Sentiment and the Price of Corporate Sustainability

Combining corporate sustainability performance scores based on environmental, social and governance (ESG) data with big data measuring public sentiment about a company’s sustainability performance, I find that the valuation premium paid for companies with strong sustainability performance has increased over time and that the premium is increasing as a function of positive public sentiment momentum. An ESG factor going long on firms with superior or increasing sustainability performance and negative sentiment momentum and short on firms with inferior or decreasing sustainability performance and positive sentiment momentum delivers significant positive alpha. This low sentiment ESG factor is uncorrelated with other factors, such as value, momentum, size, profitability and investment. In contrast, the high sentiment ESG factor delivers insignificant alpha and is strongly negatively correlated with the value factor. The evidence suggests that public sentiment influences investor views about the value of corporate sustainability activities and thereby both the price paid for corporate sustainability and the investment returns of portfolios that consider ESG data.

Does context matter for sustainability disclosure? Institutional factors in Southeast Asia

AbstractCorporate sustainability is a dynamic, socially constructed concept. Relatedly, to understand the variations in the disclosure of corporate sustainability activities across countries, we need to inherently explore their underlying sociopolitical contexts. At present our understanding in this regard, is deficient. We respond to this extant research gap by adopting a multi‐country approach to investigate the relationship between countries' institutional environments and firms' sustainability disclosure (SD) practices, across six countries in the Southeast Asian region. Our findings reflect a common focus of Southeast Asian firms on community and human resources (HRs) related disclosures. Nevertheless, nuanced differences in their overall SD levels confirm the influence of differing legal, normative, and sociocultural systems in engendering greater disclosure and transparency at a national level. By quantifying the institutional environment and identifying external influencing factors, our study provides a useful framework grounded in neo‐institutional theory to widen the existing understanding of how institutional pressures can be measured and compared across different contexts.

KURUMSAL SÜRDÜRÜLEBİLİRLİK YAKLAŞIMI ÇERÇEVESİNDE İŞLETME-SİVİL TOPLUM KURULUŞLARI ETKİLEŞİMLERİ: SEBEP VE SONUÇLAR

Kurumsal sürdürülebilirlik yaklaşımının iç içe geçmiş boyutlarını benimsemek ve bu boyutlar kapsamında başarılı bir performans sergileyebilmek için işletmeler, farklı kaynaklara ve ortaklara ihtiyaç duymaktadır. Sivil toplum kuruluşları, kurumsal sürdürülebilirlik faaliyetlerinin tasarlanmasında ve uygulanmasında işletmeler için önemli bir stratejik ortak haline gelmiştir. Bu çalışmada, kurumsal sürdürülebilirlik yaklaşımına dayanarak işletmelerin sivil toplum kuruluşları ile etkileşime girme nedenleri ile bu etkileşimlerin rekabet avantajı yaratabilecek sonuçları ilgili literatür ve örnek olay analizi çerçevesinde incelenmektedir. Önceki araştırmaları destekler nitelikte örnek işletmeler olarak incelenen Turkcell, Vodafone ve Türk Telekom’un sivil toplum kuruluşları ile strateji gerçekleştirme, meşruiyet sağlama, kaynak ve beceriye ulaşma, toplumsal fayda sağlama ve yeni ürün/pazar geliştirme gibi nedenlerle etkileşime girdiği ve bu etkileşimlerden strateji ile sürdürülebilirliği entegre etme, meşruiyet düzeyini ve performansını güçlendirme, marka değerini artırma, kaliteli beşerî kaynağı çekme ve elde tutma, yenilikçilik kabiliyetini geliştirme gibi rekabet avantajı yaratacak sonuçlar elde edebileceği görülmüştür. Ayrıca, çalışmada incelenen işletmelerin en çok sektörel STK’lar ile etkileşime geçtiği, her geçen gün sektörde önemi artan eko-inovasyona yönelik ise oldukça az sayıda etkileşime girdikleri tespit edilmiştir.

Logics of Sustainability-oriented Alliances: A Process View on Food Waste Reduction Partnerships

In corporate sustainability activities, inter-organizational partnerships were previously largely a phenomenon involving large firms and NGOs. Recently, however, large firms have to an increasing e...

Corporate Sustainability Reporting and Stakeholder Concerns: Is There a Disconnect?

SYNOPSISThe number of companies reporting their corporate sustainability (CS) activities has significantly increased over the last decade. The result being a wide variability in the types of activities being reported and the ways the information is presented. An unanswered question is whether the information being reported by companies following the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) CS framework is of interest to arguably one of the primary stakeholder groups, customers. Our study seeks to fill this knowledge gap by comparing the content of CS reports to results from a large-scale consumer stakeholder survey. By performing factor analysis on stakeholder evaluation of the importance of CS activities, we find that consumers see different dimensions than those put forth by the GRI framework, thereby suggesting a disconnect between corporate sustainability reporting and stakeholder views and interests. Our results indicate that risk and compliance are dimensions of interest to customers, while the GRI economic dimension is not viewed as important. Additionally, a new dimension of social justice is the most important to consumer stakeholders. Furthermore, the study highlights particular activities within each factor that are most important to the consumer stakeholder group. This research has implications for preparers of sustainability reports and organizations, such as the GRI, that establish guidance for sustainability reporting.

Exploring corporate sustainability integration into business activities. Experiences from 18 small and medium sized enterprises in the Netherlands

Although companies have shown a growing awareness of the importance of Corporate Sustainability (CS), integration of CS into their business activities is still problematic. Most of the CS research focuses on large corporations, with limited discussions of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). Research on SMEs has shown that most CS activities have been developed in isolation, and have not yet been totally integrated into the business activities. This research aims to understand how SMEs integrate CS into their business activities. Eighteen SMEs were analysed. These SMEs were, on their explicit request, supported in enhancing the integration of CS into their business activities. The external change agents connected to this consultancy firm applied four CS integration tools, which was based on their own experience in supporting the integration of CS in companies. The data generated through the application of these tools gives this research a specific, external change agent perspective that contributes to the understanding of CS integration. Tables including the tool data of all companies were used to analyse all eighteen cases as well as to enable a cross case comparison. The data showed that a balance proved to be necessary between a physical and social focus in the SMEs' vision on CS, the CS integration activities, the conditions for the CS change agent and the CS assessment. The research also found that although companies in a more advanced CS growth stage have more management system certifications, the management system itself is not used to ensure CS integration.

항공케이터링 공급망에서 나타난 회사차원의 지속가능한 실천

This study aims to conduct an exploratory study in order to understand aspects of corporate sustainable activities across the flight catering supply chain at the corporate level. In order to achieve this purpose, adopting a convenient and criterion sampling strategy, 7 airlines, 3 global flight caterers and 3 global food suppliers were recruited. In addition, to improve the reliability of the data, this study has also conducted 18 in-depth interviews with the flight catering experts (for example, five airlines, three caterers, four food and three non-food suppliers and three logistics companies). As a result of these in-depth interviews, this study has demonstrated three points as follows. First, this study has found that environmental aspects include reducing emissions, conserving natural resources and waste reduction, recycling and packaging. Furthermore, as far as socially sustainable performances are concerned, whilst issues concerning people within the company are dealt with in two ways including basic human rights and welfare issues, those outside the company and their living environment relates to supporting local communities and health and safety/security issues. Second, there have been some differences in the level of adoption between the players when implementing corporate sustainable performances.

Behavioral Effects of Sustainability‐Oriented Incentive Systems

AbstractCompanies increasingly extend their existing incentive systems by integrating several sustainable performance indicators. Although these ‘sustainability‐oriented’ incentive systems clearly highlight which business objectives should be attained, little is known about the effects that these incentive systems have on employee behavior. Based on signaling theory, social identity theory and a person–organization fit (PO‐fit) perspective, we assume positive relations between sustainability‐oriented incentive systems and employee attraction, motivation and cooperation. Furthermore, we examine whether these relations are moderated by personal attitudes toward corporate sustainability activities as well as the underlying mechanisms at the moderation (mediated moderation). Our experimental results (with students as future employees) do not give support for a general positive relation between sustainability‐oriented incentive systems and employee behavior. However, our data show that a person's attitude toward corporate sustainability activities moderates the link between sustainability‐oriented incentive systems and employee behavior. Additionally, we find PO‐fit perceptions to mediate the interaction effects. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment