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Erschienen in: Journal of Business Ethics 2/2017

08.10.2015

In Search of the Dominant Rationale in Sustainability Management: Legitimacy- or Profit-Seeking?

verfasst von: Stefan Schaltegger, Jacob Hörisch

Erschienen in: Journal of Business Ethics | Ausgabe 2/2017

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Abstract

The academic debate why and how companies are dealing with sustainability is dominated by two main arguments—the profit-seeking and the legitimacy-seeking view. While the first argues that companies (only) establish sustainability management measures if this helps to increase their economic success, others emphasize that companies predominantly react on societal pressure dealing with sustainability (only) to secure legitimacy. Whereas both lines of argument have gained a lot of attention in academia, little is known about their relative importance in shaping corporate practice. This papers aims to fill this gap with an empirical analysis of corporate practices of large companies in ten countries worldwide. To capture the organizations’ rationale in sustainability management practice, we systematically applied various measures related to actors and operational activities focusing on the companies’ intention to pursue sustainability management, the integration of sustainability management to the core business, and the actual implementation of related measures. Overall the findings indicate that seeking legitimacy dominates corporate sustainability management practices.

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Fußnoten
1
For reasons of clarity and uniformity, this view will in the following be labeled “profit-seeking“, even though it includes other motives connected to increasing economic success which may go beyond profit-seeking in a narrower sense.
 
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Metadaten
Titel
In Search of the Dominant Rationale in Sustainability Management: Legitimacy- or Profit-Seeking?
verfasst von
Stefan Schaltegger
Jacob Hörisch
Publikationsdatum
08.10.2015
Verlag
Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in
Journal of Business Ethics / Ausgabe 2/2017
Print ISSN: 0167-4544
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-0697
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2854-3

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