Team: Will Barror, Olivia Leader, Malik Ford, Drew Boxold, Eric Jones
The changes in a business structure do not only apply to the sustainability team, they impact everyone in a business. By understanding how organizational behavior changes when sustainability is incorporated into the business plan, we can see how a company and its managers become excellent, engaged, and ethical.
Eccles, R., Ioannou, I., & Serafeim, G. (2014). The Impact of Corporate Sustainability on
Organizational Processes and Performance. Management Science, 60(11), 2835–2857.
This study explores the organizational performance of high sustainability-focused companies versus low sustainability-focused companies and takes into account factors such as stakeholder engagement, corporate governance, measurement and disclosure, corporate and performance. This study is relevant to our topic because it focuses on how companies that have incorporated widespread sustainability practices and have changed their business structures to fit into the evolving mindset of today.
Galpin, T., Whitttington, J.and Bell, G.(2015), “Is your sustainability strategy sustainable? Creating a culture of sustainability”, Corporate Governance, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 1-17.
This article is designed to help advise managers that are looking to incorporate sustainability into their business. Beyond that, it is an educational piece describing the relationship between organizational culture and sustainability. The authors take a future-looking lens to this problem to provide information on what they think would be a goal for this relationship in the future.
Lampton, J. (2019). Transparency is the Bedrock of Ethics. Strategic Finance, 15–16.
This article discusses the benefits and challenges of being a transparent organization. Transparency is key to being a sustainable business because the employees (especially the sustainability or CSR teams) must trust that the business is using them to be sustainable, not just as a PR move or marketing stunt. To be transparent, a company must, according to the article, make a commitment to transparency, must be open about decision making, and give and receive honest feedback. This article is a great exploration into how companies can become ethical by becoming transparent.
Svensson, G., & Wood, G. (2007). Sustainable leadership ethics: A continuous and iterative
process. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 28(3), 251-268.
In this journal article, it describes the overall concept and layout of sustainable leadership ethics. It describes in-depth the different sections in each of the 3 phases of leadership ethics; input, actions, and output. The 3 sections influence each other, causing sustainable leadership ethics to change over time. This article explores each section leading to a framework for sustainable leadership ethics. This framework will be useful in seeing how the companies overall structure is changing with current times.
Teh, D., & Corbitt, B. (2015). Building sustainability strategy in business. Journal of Business
Strategy, 36(6), 00.
In this article David Teh and Brian Corbitt argue the importance of eco-sustainability policies within companies. Sustainability has become a significant global business issue and can affect long term operations of the company. Strategic market positioning and competitiveness can also be positively affected. Companies that are able to recognize, respond, adapt and manage risks associated with climate change will be at a great advantage over others.