Corporate Sustainability: A View From the Top

CITATION

Rego, A., Cunha, M., & Polónia, D. (2017). Corporate Sustainability: A View From the Top. Journal of Business Ethics, 143(1), 133–157

For library access / research help in a similar topic: anyangoceline19@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Through a qualitative approach (via semistructured
interviewing), we explore the perspective of 72
CEOs of companies operating in Portugal about the definition
of corporate sustainability (CS) and its facilitators, and
obtain four main findings. First, most CEOs equate CS with
the company’s continuity/viability. Second, the relevance
ascribed to different stakeholders differs considerably: while
more than 50 % of CEOs cited shareholders/profits, and
more than 40 % mentioned the natural environment and
employees, very few mentioned customers, society, suppliers,
the State, or competitors. Third, the management practices
considered as most important to develop CS are (a) the
organization’s strategic alignment with a long-term orientation,
and (b) developing and energizing people within a
positive organizational climate characterized by trust and
ethics. Fourth, the leadership characteristics and behaviors
considered as most important to foster CS are scrutinizing
the future and leading people through a mobilizing vision;
energizing and developing employees; and leading by
example. While the whole picture is largely consistent with
the ‘‘sustainable strategic management’’ (SSM) approach
suggested by Stead and Stead (2014) and with recent CS
integrative approaches, the great majority of CEOs who
participate in the study have not embraced such integrative
and coevolutive perspectives


REFERENCES
Amini, M., & Bienstock, C. C. (2014). Corporate sustainability: an
integrative definition and framework to evaluate corporate
practice and guide academic research. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 76, 12–19.

Amran, A., & Haniffa, R. (2011). Evidence in development of
sustainability reporting: A case of a developing country.
Business Strategy and the Environment, 20, 141–156.

Aras, G., & Crowther, D. (2009). Corporate sustainability reporting:
A study in disingenuity? Journal of Business Ethics, 87,
279–288.

Ashforth, B. E., & Anand, V. (2003). The normalization of corruption
in organizations. In R. M. Kramer & B. M. Staw (Eds.),
Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 25, pp. 1–52).
Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Basu, K., & Palazzo, G. (2008). Corporate social responsibility: A
process model of sensemaking. Academy of Management
Review, 33(1), 122–136.

Bebbington, J., Larrinaga, C., & Moneva, J. M. (2008). Corporate
social reporting and reputation risk management. Accounting,
Auditing and Accountability Journal, 21(3), 337–361.

Benn, S., & Probert, E. J. (2006). Incremental change towards
sustainability: Integrating human and ecological factors for
efficiency. In S. Schaltegger & M. Wagner (Eds.), Managing the
business case for sustainability (pp. 542–552). Sheffield:
Greenleaf.

Berns, M., Townend, A., Khayat, Z., Balagopal, B., Reeves, M.,
Hopkins, M., & Kruschwitz, N. (2009). The business of
sustainability: What it means to managers now. MIT Sloan
Management Review, 51(1), 20–26.

Bryman, A., & Burgess, R. G. (2002a). Developments in qualitative
data analysis: An introduction. In A. Bryman & R. G. Burgess
(Eds.), Analyzing qualitative data (2nd ed., pp. 1–18). London:
Routledge.

Bryman, A., & Burgess, R. G. (2002b). Reflections on qualitative data
analysis. In A. Bryman & R. G. Burgess (Eds.), Analyzing
qualitative data (2nd ed., pp. 216–226). London: Routledge.

Brytting, T., & Trollestad, C. (2000). Managerial thinking on valuebased
management. International Journal of Value-Based Management,
13, 55–77.

Cameron, K., & Spreitzer, G. M. (Eds.). (2012). The Oxford handbook
of positive organizational scholarship. New York: Oxford
University Press.

Chermack, T. (2003). Mental models in decision making and
implications for human resource development. Advances in
Developing Human Resources, 5, 408–422.

Cho, C. H., Michelon, G., & Patten, D. M. (2012). Impression
management in sustainability reports: An empirical investigation
of the use of graphs. Accounting and the Public Interest, 12(1),
16–37.

Cho, C. H., & Patten, D. M. (2007). The role of environmental
disclosures as tools of legitimacy: A research note. Accounting,
Organizations and Society, 32(7/8), 639–647.

Cho, C. H., & Roberts, R. W. (2010). Environmental reporting on the
internet by America’s toxic 100: Legitimacy and self-presentation.
International Journal of Accounting Information Systems,
11(1), 1–16.

Christensen, L. J., Peirce, E., Hartman, L. P., Hoffman, W. M., &
Carrier, J. (2007). Ethics, CSR, and sustainability education in
the Financial Times top 50 global business schools: Baseline
data and future research directions. Journal of Business Ethics,
73, 347–368.

Clark, S. M., Gioia, D. A., Ketchen, D. J., & Thomas, J. B. (2010).
Transitional identity as a facilitator of organizational identity
change during a merger. Administrative Science Quarterly,
55(3), 397–438.

Conger, J. A., & Kanungo, R. N. (1998). Charismatic leadership in
organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Cooperrider, D. L., & Godwin, L. N. (2012). Positive organization
development: Innovation-inspired change in an economy and
ecology of strengths. In K. S. Cameron & G. Spreitzer (Eds.),
The Oxford handbook of positive organizational scholarship (pp.
737–750). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Correia, R. A. (2013). Lei dos pagamentos violada por 72 entidades
do Estado. Pu´blico, March 28. Accessed on January, 25 2014
from http://www.publico.pt/economia/noticia/lei-dos-pagamen
tos-violada-por-72-entidades-do-estado-1589405.

Craveiro, C. (2009). Estado obrigado a pagar a 30 dias aos
fornecedores. Jornal de Notı´cias, 19th October. Accessed on
January, 25 from http://www.jn.pt/PaginaInicial/Economia/Inter
ior.aspx?content_id=1394555.

Cribis D&B (2013). Payment study 2013. Cribis. Accessed on
January, 25 2014 from D&https://www.informadb.pt/biblioteca/
ficheiros/27_payment_study_2013.pdf.

Cunha, M. P., Rego, A., & Cunha, J. V. (2008). Ecocentric
management: An update. Corporate Social Responsibility and
Environmental Management, 15, 311–321.

Daily, B. F., & Huang, S. (2001). Achieving sustainability through
attention to human resource factors in environmental management.
International Journal of Operations & Production Management,
21(12), 1539–1552.

Denis, J.-L., Kisfalvi, V., Langley, A., & Rouleau, L. (2011).
Perspectives on strategic leadership. In A. Bryman, D. Collinson,
K. Grint, B. Jackson, & M. Uhl-Bien (Eds.), The Sage handbook
of leadership (pp. 71–85). London: Sage.

Diesendorf, M. (2000). Sustainability and sustainable development. In
D. Dunphy, J. Benveniste, A. Griffiths, & P. Sutton (Eds.),
Sustainability: The corporate challenge of the 21st century (pp.
19–37). Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Dunphy, D., Griffiths, A., & Benn, S. (2003). Organizational change
for corporate sustainability. New York: Routledge.

Dyllick, T., & Hockerts, K. (2002). Beyond the business case for
corporate sustainability. Business Strategy and the Environment,
11, 130–141.

Ensley, M. D., Hmieleski, K. M., & Pearce, C. L. (2006). The
importance of vertical and shared leadership within new venture
top management teams: Implications for the performance of
startups. Leadership Quarterly, 17(3), 217–231.

Ensley, M. D., & Pearce, C. L. (2001). Shared cognition in top
management teams: Implications for new venture performance.
Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22, 145–160.

CSR Europe (2010). A guide to CSR in Europe: Country insights by
CSR Europe’s national partner organisations. Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR), CSR, Brussels.

Fairfield, K., Harmon, J., & Behson, S. (2011). Influences on the
organizational implementation of sustainability: An integrative
model. Organization Management Journal, 8(1), 4–20.

Feldman, M. S. (1995). Strategies for interpreting qualitative data.
Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Fifka, M. S. (2013). Corporate responsibility reporting and its
determinants in comparative perspective: A review of the
empirical literature and a meta-analysis. Business Strategy and
the Environment, 22(1), 1–35.

Figge, F., & Hahn, T. (2006). Sustainable value added: A new
approach to measuring corporate sustainable performance. In S.

Schaltegger & M. Wagner (Eds.), Managing the business case
for sustainability: The integration of social, environmental and
economic performance (pp. 146–164). Sheffield: Greenleaf.

Galpin, T., & Whittington, J. L. (2012). Sustainability leadership:
From strategy to results. Journal of Business Strategy, 33(4),
40–48.

Gardner, W. L., Cogliser, C. C., Davis, K. M., & Dickens, M. P.
(2011). Authentic leadership: A review of the literature and
research agenda. Leadership Quarterly, 22(6), 1120–1145.

Gelfand, M. J., Erez, M., & Aycan, Z. (2007). Cross-cultural
organizational behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, 58,
479–514.

Ghoshal, S. (2005). Bad management theories are destroying good
management practices. Academy of Management Learning and
Education, 4(1), 75–91.

Gioia, D. A., Corley, K. G., & Hamilton, A. L. (2012). Seeking
qualitative rigor in inductive research: Notes on the Gioia
methodology. Organizational Research Methods, 16(1), 15–31.

Gjølberg, M. (2009). The origin of corporate social responsibility:
Global forces or national legacies? Socio-Economic Review,
7(4), 605–637.

Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded
theory. Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago, IL: Aldine.

Gomes, C. (2007). The transformation of the Portuguese judicial
organization: Between efficiency and democracy. Utrecht Law
Review, 3(1), 101–111.

Gu¨ler, A., & Crowther, D. (2008). Governance and sustainability.
Management Decision, 46(3), 433–448.

Hahn, T., & Figge, F. (2011). Beyond the bounded instrumentality in
current corporate sustainability research: Toward an inclusive
notion of profitability. Journal of Business Ethics, 104, 325–345.

Hahn, T., Pinkse, J., Preuss, L., & Figge, F. (2015). Tensions in
corporate sustainability: Towards an integrative framework.
Journal of Business Ethics, 127, 297–316.

Harmon, J., & Fairfield, K. D. (2014). Relative effect of geographic
context and international strategic approach on sustainability
management. International Journal of Sustainable Strategic
Management, 4(3), 221–246.

Hassan, F. (2011). The frontline advantage. Harvard Business
Review, 89(5), 106–114.

Hesselbarth, C., & Schaltegger, S. (2014). Educating change agents
for sustainability. Learnings from the first sustainability management
master of business administration. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 62, 24–36.

Hill, L. A., & Lineback, K. (2011). Are you a good boss—or a great
one? Harvard Business Review, 89(1/2), 124–131.

Hoffman, A. J., & Haigh, N. (2012). Positive deviance for a
sustainable world: Linking sustainability and Positive Organizational
Scholarship. In K. S. Cameron & G. Spreitzer (Eds.),
The Oxford handbook of positive organizational scholarship (pp.
953–964). New York: Oxford University Press.

Hoffman, A. J., & Henn, R. (2008). Overcoming the social and
psychological barriers to green building. Organization & Environment,
21(4), 390–419.

Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and organizations: Software of the
mind. London: McGraw-Hill.

Hogan, J., & Lodhia, S. (2011). Sustainability reporting and
reputation risk management: an Australian case study. International
Journal of Accounting & Information Management, 19(3),
267–287.

Hooghiemstra, R. (2000). Corporate communication and impression
management—New perspectives why companies engage in
corporate social reporting. Journal of Business Ethics, 27, 55–68.

House, R., Hanges, P., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P., & Gupta, V. (Eds.).
(2004). Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE
study of 62 societies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Howard-Grenville, J. A. (2006). Inside the ‘‘black box’’: How
organizational culture and subcultures inform interpretations and
actions on environmental issues. Organization & Environment,
19(1), 46–73.

International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) (1992).
Business strategies to sustainable development. IISD, Winnipeg,
Canada (https://www.iisd.org/business/pdf/business_strategy.
pdf).

Jesuino, J. C. (2002). Latin Europe cluster: From South to North.
Journal of World Business, 37, 81–89.

Kanter, R. M. (2011). How great companies think differently.
Harvard Business Review, 89(11), 66–78.

Kay, J. (2010). Obliquity. London: Profile.

Lindlof, T. R. (1995). Qualitative communication research methods.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Linnenluecke, M. K., & Griffiths, A. (2010). Corporate sustainability
and organizational culture. Journal of World Business, 5(4),
255–357.

Lo, S.-F. (2010). Performance evaluation for sustainable business:
A profitability and marketability framework. Corporate
Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 17,
311–319.

Lozano, R. (2013). Are companies planning their organisational
changes for corporate sustainability? An analysis of three case
studies on resistance to change and their strategies to overcome
it. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management,
20(5), 275–295.

Lozano, R. (2015). A holistic perspective on corporate sustainability
drivers. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental
Management, 22(1), 32–44.

Luthans, F., & Youssef, C. (2004). Human, social, and now positive
psychological capital management: Investing in people for
competitive advantage. Organizational Dynamics, 33(2),
143–160.

Maignan, I., & Ralston, D. A. (2002). Corporate social responsibility
in Europe and the U.S.: Insights from businesses’ self-presentations.
Journal of International Business Studies, 33(3),
497–514.

Manning, P. K. (1987). Semiotics and fieldwork. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.

Marshall, J. (2011). En-gendering notions of leadership for sustainability.
Gender, Work and Organization, 18(3), 263–281.

Meindl, J. R., Ehrlich, S. B., & Dukerich, J. M. (1985). The romance
of leadership. Administrative Science Quarterly, 30, 78–102.

Metcalf, L., & Benn, S. (2013). Leadership for sustainability: An
evolution of leadership ability. Journal of Business Ethics, 112,
369–384.

MIT Sloan Management Review and the Boston Consulting Group
(2011). Sustainability: The ‘‘embracers’’ seize advantage. MIT
Sloan Management Review. Research Report, Winter.

MIT Sloan Management Review and the Boston Consulting Group
(2012). Sustainability nears a tipping point. MIT Sloan Management
Review. Research Report, Winter.

Mittal, R., & Dorfman, P. W. (2012). Servant leadership across
cultures. Journal of World Business, 47, 555–570.

Montiel, I. (2008). Corporate social responsibility and corporate
sustainability: separate pasts, common futures. Organization &
Environment, 21(3), 245–269.

Morsing, M., & Oswald, D. (2009). Sustainable leadership: management
control systems and organizational culture in Novo Nordisk
A/A. Corporate Governance, 9(1), 83–99.

Neu, D., Warsame, H., & Pedwell, K. (1998). Managing public
impressions: environmental disclosures in annual reports. Accounting,
Organizations and Society, 23(3), 265–282.

Nikolaeva, R., & Bicho, M. (2011). The role of institutional and
reputational factors in the voluntary adoption of corporate social
responsibility reporting standards. Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science, 39, 136–157.

OECD (2014). OECD Economic Surveys: Portugal—Overview.
OECD Publishing.

Olesen, V., Droes, N., Hatton, D., Chico, N., & Schatzman, L. (2002).
Analyzing together: Recollections of a team approach. In A.
Bryman & R. G. Burgess (Eds.), Analyzing qualitative data (2nd
ed., pp. 111–128). London: Routledge.

O’Reilly, C. A., Caldwell, D. F., Chatman, J. A., Lapiz, M., & Self,
W. (2010). How leadership matters: The effects of leaders’
alignment on strategy implementation. Leadership Quarterly,
21, 104–113.

Parboteeah, K. P., Addae, H. M., & Cullen, J. B. (2012). Propensity to
support sustainability initiatives: A cross-national model. Journal
of Business Ethics, 105, 403–413.

Pearce, C. L., Manz, C. C., & Akanno, S. (2013). Searching for the
holy grail of management development and sustainability.
Journal of Management Development, 32(3), 247–257.

Peloza, J., Loock, M., Cerruti, J., & Muyot, M. (2012). Sustainability:
How stakeholder perceptions differ from corporate reality.
California Management Review, 55(1), 74–97.

Pfeffer, J. (2005). Changing mental models: HR’s most important
task. Human Resource Management, 44, 123–128.

Price Waterhouse Coopers & SAM. (2008). The Sustainability
Yearbook—2008. London: Price Waterhouse Coopers & SAM.

Quinn, L., & Dalton, M. (2009). Leading for sustainability: Implementing
the tasks of leadership. Corporate Governance, 9(1), 21–38.

Ramos, T. B., Cecilio, T., Douglas, C. H., & Caeiro, S. (2013).
Corporate sustainability reporting and the relations with evaluation
and management frameworks: The Portuguese case.
Journal of Cleaner Production, 52, 317–328.

Reed, R., & DeFillippi, R. J. (1990). Causal ambiguity, barriers to
imitation, and sustainable competitive advantage. Academy of
Management Review, 15(1), 88–102.

Rego, A., Sarrico, C., & Moreira, J. M. (2005/2006). Trust in
Portuguese public authorities. Public Integrity, 8(1), 77–92.

Robinson, S. L., & O’Leary-Kelly, A. M. (1998). Monkey see,
monkey do: The influence of work groups on the antisocial
behavior of employees. Academy of Management Journal, 41,
658–673.

Roxas, B., & Coetzer, A. (2012). Institutional environment, managerial
attitudes and environmental sustainability orientation of
small firms. Journal of Business Ethics, 111, 461–476.

Santos, B. S. (2004). A Justic¸a em Portugal: Diagno´sticos e
terapeˆuticas. Revista Manifesto, 7, 76–87.

Santos, A. S. (2013). Estado deve 2.8 mil milho˜es a fornecedores.
Expresso Economia, November. Accessed on January 25, 2014
from http://www.jn.pt/PaginaInicial/Economia/Interior.aspx?con
tent_id=1394555.

Schaltegger, S., & Burritt, R. L. (2010). Sustainability accounting for
companies: Catchphrase or decision support for business leaders?
Journal of World Business, 45, 375–384.

Scherer, A. G., & Palazzo, G. (2007). Toward a political conception
of corporate responsibility: Business and society seen from a
Habermasian perspective. Academy of Management Review,
22(4), 1096–1120.

Scherer, A. G., & Palazzo, G. (2011). The new political role of
business in a globalized world: A review of a new perspective on
CSR and its implications for the firm, governance, and democracy.
Journal of Management Studies, 48(4), 899–931.

Schwab, K. (Ed.) (2014). The global competitiveness index, 2014–
2015. World Economic Forum.

Sherman, P., & Hansen, J. (2010). The new corporate social
responsibility: A call for sustainability in business education.
International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development,
9(1–3), 241–254.

Signitzer, B., & Prexl, A. (2008). Corporate sustainability communications:
Aspects of theory and professionalization. Journal of
Public Relations Research, 20, 1–19.

Skapinker, M. (2013). Bangladesh and the clothes on our backs.
Financial Times, May 23, 16.

Stavros, J. M., & Wooten, L. (2012). Positive strategy: Creating and
sustaining strengths-based strategy that SOARs and performs. In
K. S. Cameron & G. Spreitzer (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of
positive organizational scholarship (pp. 825–839). Oxford:
Oxford University Press.

Stead, J., & Stead, W. E. (2010). Sustainability comes to management
education and research: A story of coevolution. Academy of
Management Learning & Education, 9(3), 488–498.

Stead, J., & Stead, W. E. (2014). Sustainable strategic management
(2nd ed.). New York: M.E. Sharpe.

Stoughton, A. M., & Ludema, J. (2012). The driving forces of
sustainability. Journal of Organizational Change Management,
25(4), 501–517.

Strand, R. (2014). Strategic leadership of corporate sustainability.
Journal of Business Ethics, 123, 687–706.

Sully de Luque, M., Washburn, N. T., Waldman, D. A., & House, R.
J. (2008). Unrequited profit: How stakeholder and economic
values relate to subordinates’ perceptions of leadership and firm
performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 53, 626–654.

Tepper, B. J. (2000). Consequences of abusive supervision. Academy
of Management Journal, 43, 178–190.

Tollin, K., & Vej, J. (2012). Sustainability in business: understanding
meanings, triggers and enablers. Journal of Strategic Marketing,
20(7), 625–641.

Ulrich, P., & Thielemann, U. (1993). How do managers think about
market economics and morality? Empirical economies and
morality? Empirical enquiries into business-ethical thinking
patterns. Journal of Business Ethics, 12, 879–898.

United Nations Global Compact (2010). Blueprint for corporate
sustainability leadership. UN Global Compact Office (https://
www.unglobalcompact.org/docs/issues_doc/lead/BluePrint_EN.
pdf).

Van Marrewijk, M. V. (2003). Concepts and definitions of CSR and
corporate sustainability: Between agency and communion.
Journal of Business Ethics, 44(2/3), 95–105.

van Marrewijk, M., & Were, M. (2003). Multiple levels of corporate
sustainability. Journal of Business Ethics, 44, 107–119.

Van Velsor, E., & McCauley, C. D. (2004). Our view of leadership
development. In C. D. McCauley & E. Van Velsor (Eds.), The
Center for Creative Leadership Handbook of Leadership Development
(pp. 1–22). San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

Waldman, D. W., & Siegel, D. S. (2008). Defining the socially
responsible leader. Leadership Quarterly, 19(1), 117–131.

Waldman, D. W., Siegel, D. S., & Javidan, M. (2006). Components of
CEO transformational leadership and corporate social responsibility.
Journal of Management Studies, 43(8), 1703–1725.

Wilkinson, A., Hill, M., & Gollan, P. (2001). The sustainability
debate. International Journal of Operations & Production
Management, 21(12), 1492–1502.

Williams, O. F. (2014). CSR: Will it change the world? Journal of
Corporate Citizenship, 53, 9–26.

Wirtenberg, J., Harmon, J., & Fairfield, K. D. (2007). HR’s role in
building a sustainable enterprise: Insights from some of the
world’s best companies. Human Resource Planning, 30(1), 10–20.

World Commission on Environment and Development (1987). Our
common future. New York.

Youssef, C., & Luthans, F. (2012). Psychological capital: Meaning,
findings and future directions. In K. S. Cameron & G. Spreitzer
(Eds.), The Oxford handbook of positive organizational scholarship
(pp. 17–27). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Youssef-Morgan, C., & Luthans, F. (2013). Positive leadership:
Meaning and application across cultures. Organizational
Dynamics, 42(3), 198–208.

Yukl, G. (2013). Leadership in organizations (8th ed.). Harlow,
Essex: Pearson.