Handbook of Sustainability-Driven Business Strategies in Practice

Sustainability is a top priority for organizations and a key strategy in corporate agendas, but the effective deployment of any strategy demands that the strategy is consistent, functional, and aligned. This Handbook advocates sustainability strategies that encompass environmental, social, and economic dimensions at department-level.

Split into sections covering business strategies in marketing, innovation and entrepreneurship, operations management and information systems, finance and accounting, and human resources, this Handbook provides a comprehensive view of the development and deployment of sustainability-driven business strategies across an entire organization. The last section uses case studies to provide a better understanding of the features and tools needed to develop and implement a sustainability-driven business strategy in practice.

Distinguishing the important role of each functional area, this Handbook will be a key reference for those researching on sustainability-related topics across business and management. Beyond the academic contributions, this Handbook also provides practical guidelines for managers interested in implementing sustainability-driven business strategies in their workplace.

Contents:

Preface xxxiii

PART 1 DEFINING A SUSTAINABILITY-DRIVEN BUSINESS STRATEGY
1 Developing a sustainability strategic agenda 3
François Maon, Adam Lindgreen and Valérie Swaen
2 Corporate foundations as vehicles for sustainable development: how do
corporate foundations work with parent companies to achieve sustainability? 18
Pilar Acosta
3 Materiality analysis as the basis for sustainability strategies and
reporting – a systematic review of approaches and recommendations for
practice 35
Sophia Schwoy and Andreas Dutzi
4 Defining a sustainability-driven business modeling strategy with a
“storytelling science” approach 59
David M. Boje and Mohammad B. Rana

PART 2 SUSTAINABILITY-DRIVEN BUSINESS STRATEGIES IN
MARKETING
5 Corporate responsibility as an effective marketing practice for
improving consumers’ brand evaluations – critical overview, new
insights, and future directions 79
Ilona Szőcs and Milena Micevski
6 Promises, promises: how to showcase the authenticity of sustainability
claims through digitalization 94
Nicholas Ind and Oriol Iglesias
7 Interactive network branding: towards a sustainability-driven strategy
of small and medium-sized enterprises 108
Nikolina Koporcic and Jan-Åke Törnroos
8 How does brand-cause fit influence the success of CrM campaigns? 121
Inês Padilha Campelos, Susana Costa e Silva and Joana César Machado

PART 3 SUSTAINABILITY-DRIVEN BUSINESS STRATEGIES IN
INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
9 Business model innovation for sustainability: the intersections among
business models, innovation, and sustainability 144
Stefan Markovic and Karin Tollin
10 Social challenges within sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems 158
Roberto Hernandez-Chea, Maral Mahdad and Minh Thai
11 The UN Global Compact SDG Action Manager: how benefit
corporations and purpose-driven businesses are driving the change 173
Giorgia Nigri, Armando Agulini and Mara Del Baldo

PART 4 SUSTAINABILITY-DRIVEN BUSINESS STRATEGIES IN
OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
12 SMEs, environmental sustainability and waste management:
a comparative empirical study of Spain and Chile 191
Francisco Villegas Pinuer, Joan Llonch Andreu and Pilar López Belbeze
13 Adoption of environmental management systems: perspectives from
UK, Finland and Thailand 226
David B. Grant, Sarah Shaw, Siriwan Chaisurayakarn and Alex Nikolai Shenin
14 The role of purchasing in the diffusion of sustainability in supply networks 244
Thomas E. Johnsen, Federico Caniato and Toloue Miandar
15 Sustainability assessment in the food supply chain 260
Verónica León-Bravo and Federico Caniato
16 Sustainable data management 278
Sreyaa Guha and Polina Landgraf

PART 5 SUSTAINABILITY-DRIVEN BUSINESS STRATEGIES IN
FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING
17 Do CSR reports impact firms’ stock returns? A pilot study analysis 304
Andreas Dutzi, Julian Schröter and Eshari Withanage
18 An analysis of business actions in private social reporting 323
Natalia Semenova
19 How environment, social and governance scores impact company
financial performance indicators: evidence from Denmark 338
Slobodan Kacanski
20 The role of the internal audit function in fostering sustainability reporting 352
Mara Del Baldo, Selena Aureli and Rosa Lombardi

PART 6 SUSTAINABILITY-DRIVEN BUSINESS STRATEGIES IN
HUMAN RESOURCES
21 Sustainability-driven HRM: the WHAT, the WHAT FOR and the HOW 371
Rosalía Cascón-Pereira, Tahereh Maghsoudi and Ana Beatriz Hernández-Lara
22 The role of human resource management function in the
institutionalization of sustainability: the case study of the Dutch hotel industry 392
Andrew Ngawenja Mzembe
23 Profits with purpose: corporate and entrepreneurial toxic leadership and
threats to organizational sustainability 413
David Coldwell and Robert Venter

PART 7 SUSTAINABILITY-DRIVEN BUSINESS STRATEGIES
ACROSS FUNCTIONAL AREAS IN AN ORGANIZATION
24 Cross-functional integration in sustainability-driven business practice 432
Duane Windsor
25 Strategic alignment of purchasing for sustainability: a multi-level framework 454
Melek Akın Ateş and Nüfer Yasin Ateş
26 Purchasing and marketing of social and environmental sustainability in
high-tech medical equipment 477
Adam Lindgreen, Michael Antioco, David Harness and Remi van der Sloot

PART 8 CASE STUDIES ON SUSTAINABILITY-DRIVEN
BUSINESS STRATEGIES
27 Ecoalf: a brand with a conscience 497
Nicholas Ind
28 Sustainability as strategy: the case of Comwell Hotels 503
Kristian J. Sund and Rasmus Downes-Rasmussen
29 Boat trip adventure changing the lives of thousands: the story of Song
Saa Private Island 507
Ilia Gugenishvili and Nikolina Koporcic
30 Doing business the sustainable ‘Novo Nordisk Way’ 514
Marija Sarafinovska and Yuqian Qiu
31 Sustainability in the chemical industry through an industrial spin-off:
the case of Apricot 523
Miguel Saiz García

Index 527