Ramping Up Resistance: Corporate Sustainable Development and Academic Research

Abstract

We argue the need for academics to resist and challenge the hegemonic discourse of sustainable development within the corporate context. Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory provides a useful framework for recognizing the complex nature of sustainable development and a way of conceptualizing counter-hegemonies. Published empirical research which analyzes sustainable development discourse within corporate reports is examined to consider how the hegemonic discourse is constructed. Embedded assumptions within the hegemonic construction are identified including sustainable development as primarily about economic development, progress, growth, profitability, and 'responsibly' managed levels of resource depletion. We call for multiple voices in the discursive field to debate and to resist closure, and highlight the possibilities for academic researchers to actively resist the hegemonic construction. Specifically we advocate: vigilance and awareness; critical and reflective analyses; challenge and resistance based on other frames of reference; and strategies for communicating both within and outside the academy. . Indeed, much of the argument that follows covers the literature that appears in a wide range of management, accounting and business ethics publications that carries reference to "corporate sustainability" or "corporate sustainable development" or some other such conjunction between economic organization and the terms "sustainability" and/or "sustainable development". 4 dimensions of sustainability, to address concerns of sufficiency as well as efficiency, and Keywords -to also focus at a societal level. They seek to advance a research agenda that further explores corporate sustainability in a broader ecological and societal context, seeking further understanding and novel insights.While we applaud and support the direction that Hahn et al (2015) seek, we are concerned it fails to go far enough. Lacking, we suggest, is a more critical edge, strong moral or ethical import, which surely must lie squarely within a concept grounded in concerns of equity and justice. As organizational management and reporting practices have mushroomed in the name of sustainable development and sustainability, researchers we express a need for academics and academic research to resist and challenge the hegemonic discourse of sustainable development within the corporate context.There is now a substantial body of literature which examines corporate discourses of sustainable development/sustainability. 2This literature is based on interviews (Bebbington & Thomson, 1996;Byrch, Kearins, Milne & Morgan, 2007;Spence, 2007;Springett, 2003), other sources of corporate communication , or more commonly the corporate (annual or stand-alone) report (Buhr & Reiter, 2006;Laine, 2005;2010;Livesey, 2002a, Livesey & Kearins, 2002Milne et al., 2009;Tregidga & Milne, 2006;Tregidga, Kearins & Milne, 2013;Tregidga, Milne & Kearins, 2014).Academic analysis that critically engages with business messages suggests that business has defined sustainable develo...

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