Legitimacy and Organizational Sustainability

Thomas, Tom E.; Lamm, Eric

doi:10.1007/s10551-012-1421-4

Cited by 132 publications

(122 citation statements)

References 84 publications

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“…A growing number of companies have been recognising the relations and interdependences of the economic, environmental, and social dimensions [103,107], for satisfying the needs of today's societies without compromising the needs of tomorrow's societies [108], and integrating sustainability into their strategic and operational decision-making processes [109]. However, integrating sustainability principles into a company's system represents significant challenges, especially due to their complexity and the multidimensional issues [110].…”

Section: Corporations' Contributions To Sustainabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Proposing a Definition and a Framework of Organisational Sustainability: A Review of Efforts and a Survey of Approaches to Change

Lozano

2018

Sustainability

112

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Organisations (civil society, companies, and public-sector organisations (PSOs)) have been instrumental in driving sustainability. In the last five years, there has been an increasing interest in organisational sustainability, where the importance of sustainability's dimensions depends on an organisation's nature and purpose. A large body of literature on organisational sustainability has focused on companies, followed by education institutions, in particular higher education. Limited, yet increasing, attention has been directed to PSOs and other civil society organisations. Although there have been some attempts to define a sustainable organisation, there is still a need to define and establish the principles of how organisations can address and contribute to sustainability. The sustainability efforts in the different types of organisations were reviewed and then analysed in this paper by using hermeneutics. This was complemented with a survey on sustainability changes. The survey was sent to a database of 1574 contacts from different organisations. In addition, 106 anonymous links were sent out. From the total list of emails, 118 full responses were obtained, with 39 from civil society (37 from higher education and 2 NGOs), 66 corporations, and 13 PSOs. This research distils the key system elements of the efforts in each of the organisations in order to synthesise and propose a definition and a conceptual framework of organisational sustainability. These can help organisations understand where their efforts are and how they could better embed sustainability into their systems, thus contributing to the well-being of societies and the environment for this generation and future ones.

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Section: Corporations' Contributions To Sustainabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Proposing a Definition and a Framework of Organisational Sustainability: A Review of Efforts and a Survey of Approaches to Change

Lozano

2018

Sustainability

112

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“…Martens and De Carvalho (2014) recognise the importance of the economic dimension as it protects the capital of the organisation's investors. Maximising profit, reducing costs, growing revenue and improving quality are considered to be some of the traditional business imperatives (Watts & Holme, 1999; T. E. Thomas & Lamm, 2012). There are those who place even more importance on the economic dimension, stating that the goods and services by which we live are considered to be a by-product of the expectation to make money (D. Dillard, 1987).…”

Section: Sustainabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Incorporating sustainability into IT project management

Clinning

Marnewick

2017

SACJ

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The concept of sustainability is becoming more and more important in the face of dwindling resources and increasing demand. Despite this, there are still many industries and disciplines in which sustainability is not actively addressed. The requirement of meeting current and future needs is not an issue from which IT projects are exempt. Ensuring sustainability requires managing sustainability in all activities. The field of IT and sustainability is one in which literature is appearing, but at a slow pace and this leaves many unanswered questions regarding the state of sustainability in IT projects and the commitment of IT project managers to sustainability. In not knowing what the state of sustainability is, potential shortcomings remain unknown and corrective action cannot be taken. Quantitative research was conducted through the use of a survey in the form of a structured questionnaire. This research was cross-sectional as the focus was to assess the state of sustainability at a single point in time. IT project managers were randomly sampled to get an objective view of how committed they were to sustainability. This research made use of a project management sustainability maturity model to measure the extent to which sustainability is incorporated into IT projects. The findings are that IT project managers are not committed to sustainability. While the economic dimension yielded the best results, they were not ideal, and it is in fact the social and environmental dimensions that require the most attention. This lacking commitment to the social and environmental dimensions is not limited to select aspects within each dimension, as each dimension’s aspects are addressed to a similarly poor extent. This research suggests that sustainability needs to become a focus for IT project managers, but for this to happen, they require the relevant project management sustainability knowledge.

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“…Based on these insights, the authors discuss avenues for future studies in investigating the role of sustainability assurance for sustaining sustainability in organizations. Thomas and Lamm (2012) address the question of how a firm can be successful at integrating sustainability concerns into strategic and operational decision-making processes while still meeting its traditional business goals. They elaborate on a conceptual model based on Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior (1985Behavior ( , 1991) that operates at the individual managerial level.…”

Section: Special Issue Papersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Also, how do stakeholders hinder firms' continuance of sustainability and what responsibilities do external stakeholders have for encouraging firms' compliance and improvement? Thomas and Lamm (2012) suggest that managers' attitudes are consequential and perhaps, external attitudes are also. Future research could empirically investigate how internal and external attitudes about the legitimacy of sustainability affect its continuance in firms; a challenge will be how to measure attitudes (Thomas and Lamm 2012).…”

Section: Final Thoughtsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thomas and Lamm (2012) suggest that managers' attitudes are consequential and perhaps, external attitudes are also. Future research could empirically investigate how internal and external attitudes about the legitimacy of sustainability affect its continuance in firms; a challenge will be how to measure attitudes (Thomas and Lamm 2012). Alongside these issues is the politics of sustainability and the requirement for further understanding of how, when there is such a diversity of standards, firms choose with which one(s) they will comply (Perego and Kolk 2012).…”

Section: Final Thoughtsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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