Motivations for Corporate Sustainability Management: Contrasting Survey Results and Implementation

Abstract

This paper compares empirical findings on the implementation of sustainability management with the results of earlier surveys on corporate motivations to deal with sustainability. We analyze the relevance of three different motivations, i.e. seeking corporate legitimacy, market success, and internal improvement. This is accomplished by matching these motivations with empirical findings on the engagement of functional areas. The underlying rationale is that differences in the engagement of functional areas can be expected to depend on the overall corporate motivation for sustainability management. Our analysis shows low engagement in finance and accounting, whereas the public relations department is actively engaged. Since this functional area commonly aims to legitimize corporate activities, this finding contradicts the results of earlier studies which concluded that legitimacy is not an important motivation for sustainability. We discuss reasons for these contradictions and derive implications for future research and business activities.

Responsibility versus Profit: The Motives of Food Firms for Healthy Product Innovation

“…Many scholars have investigated CSR motives, and several typologies and inventories have been made [14,[16][17][18]33,[35][36][37][38]. However, few of these studies have linked the identified motives to actual firm behavior, focusing mostly on self-reported behavior in CSR reports and interviews [17].…”

“…These instrumental theories have also been translated into practice, as can be seen by the instrumental motives for corporate social responsible behavior identified in empirical studies [17,33,36,38]. Motives that are categorized as instrumental are characterized as serving self-interest [9,14] and as being derived from external incentives and are thus extrinsic by nature [35,46].…”

“…These instrumental motives can be divided into motives for short-term outcomes and long-term outcomes [14]. When focusing on short-term outcomes, the firm is motivated by direct effects on its profitability [14]; for example, by reducing (production) costs [17,33] or by increasing sales through cause-related marketing [17,41]. Other instrumental motives are more concerned with the long-term survival of the firm, thus aiming for postponement of legislation [9,36,47], creation of a favorable business environment [16,40,47], or attraction and preservation of employees and investors [18,39].…”

“…To answer this question, a study design was implemented to specifically avoid desirability bias, which is common in studies on motives for socially responsible behavior [32,33]. Our multiple case study started from quantitative data on the actual innovation behavior of eight food firms in the Netherlands regarding diet-related health issues, and then collected qualitative data from the firms on their motives for the decisions made.…”

Integration of Sustainability into the Corporate Strategy

“…Where early contributions were focused on external factors, internal motivation and connecting drivers have gained in significance. Figure 1 gives an overview of the main motivational factors and drivers for corporate sustainability (Bansal and Roth 2000; van Marrewijk and Werre 2003; van Marrewijk 2003;Schaltegger and Burritt 2005;Epstein and Buhovac 2014;Windolph et al 2014;Lozano 2015;Engert et al 2016).Upon consideration of the motivations behind implementing sustainability into the corporate strategy, a new or adapted strategy has to be defined. In a procedural approach to strategy development, the main imperatives and courses of action are discussed in the following section.…”