Applause,
applause: Regarding the goals of sustainability management social acceptance
is more important
than profit for large companies. © fotolia_62372428_yanlev
(February 25, 2016) It
is commonly believed that companies are only committed to environmental and
social issues if this contributes to increase their profits. A new study now
shows that this stereotype is not true at least for large companies in
developed countries. The driving force behind sustainability management
activities of large companies is mainly the pursuit of social acceptance.
Conversely, profit maximisation plays a subordinate role. This counterintuitive
result of a broad empirical study has recently been published in the Journal of
Business Ethics by Prof. Dr. Stefan Schaltegger (Leuphana University of
Lüneburg) and Prof. Dr. Jacob Hörisch (Alanus University) (DOI: 10.1007 /
210551-015-2854-3).
The study is based on a survey of 432 of the largest
companies in ten industrial countries in Europe, North America and Asia.
Sustainability managers were asked about the aims, actors, methods and effects
of the company’s sustainability management activities. The survey results are
clear: A legitimacy-oriented perspective is prevalent not only in the aims, but
also in the organisational implementation and the application of sustainability
management measures. By contrast, objectives and practices following a more
profit-driven logic of action were regarded as less important by the majority
of respondents.
Already for developing sustainability management goals, the
pursuit of social recognition plays a greater role than the profit motive. This
may be because the impact from legitimacy-oriented players such as media or
NGOs on corporate sustainability activities is perceived to be much higher,
than that of financially focussed external stakeholders such as banks, credit
rating agencies or shareholders.
A similar picture emerges from the choice of sustainability
activities. For the majority of businesses, legitimacy-driven measures, such as
improving employee motivation and the reputation of the company are more
important than profit maximisation and cost reduction. This is also reflected
in the organisational and personnel anchoring within the company: PR and
communication departments, as well as legal departments are much more
frequently entrusted with tasks of sustainability management than finance,
accounting and controlling.