IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jrisks/v9y2021i11p186-d660736.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Risking Sustainability: Political Risk Culture as Inhibiting Ecology-Centered Sustainability

Author

Listed:
  • Susan T. Jackson

    (Department of Economic History and International Relations, Universitetsvägen 10A, Frescati, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden)

Abstract

This exploratory study aims to understand why, and propose remedies for, the treatment of political risk and sustainability as siloed risk areas in risk analyses. I employ an interdisciplinary theoretical approach that focuses on the roles of values and worldviews, stages of sustainability and hybrid knowledge to understand this siloing. The large-N interpretive method used here combines content frequency counts with discourse analysis to examine over 400 corporate communication documents from 37 companies. The study also explores how, through corporate communication, companies that provide political risk analysis convey what is at risk and what counts as sustainability. I argue that the broad shared ‘cultural’ tones of what it means to be in the political risk field pose challenges for integrating political risk and sustainability. The study concludes with several recommendations on how to overcome the current barriers in order to integrate political risk and sustainability in risk analyses.

Suggested Citation

  • Susan T. Jackson, 2021. "Risking Sustainability: Political Risk Culture as Inhibiting Ecology-Centered Sustainability," Risks, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-15, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jrisks:v:9:y:2021:i:11:p:186-:d:660736
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9091/9/11/186/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9091/9/11/186/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nancy E. Landrum & Brian Ohsowski, 2018. "Identifying Worldviews on Corporate Sustainability: A Content Analysis of Corporate Sustainability Reports," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 128-151, January.
    2. Gail Whiteman & Brian Walker & Paolo Perego, 2013. "Planetary Boundaries: Ecological Foundations for Corporate Sustainability," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 307-336, March.
    3. Tamsin Angus‐Leppan & Suzanne Benn & Louise Young, 2010. "A sensemaking approach to trade‐offs and synergies between human and ecological elements of corporate sustainability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(4), pages 230-244, May.
    4. Brendon Swedlow, 2007. "Using the boundaries of science to do boundary-work among scientists: Pollution and purity claims," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(9), pages 633-643, November.
    5. Thomas P. Seager, 2008. "The sustainability spectrum and the sciences of sustainability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(7), pages 444-453, November.
    6. Davide Settembre-Blundo & Rocío González-Sánchez & Sonia Medina-Salgado & Fernando E. García-Muiña, 2021. "Flexibility and Resilience in Corporate Decision Making: A New Sustainability-Based Risk Management System in Uncertain Times," Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, Springer;Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management, vol. 22(2), pages 107-132, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Irina A. Morozova & Stanislav S. Yatsechko, 2022. "The Risks of Smart Cities and the Perspectives of Their Management Based on Corporate Social Responsibility in the Interests of Sustainable Development," Risks, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-15, February.
    2. Hunjra, Ahmed Imran & Azam, Muhammad & Bruna, Maria Giuseppina & Verhoeven, Peter & Al-Faryan, Mamdouh Abdulaziz Saleh, 2022. "Sustainable development: The impact of political risk, macroeconomic policy uncertainty and ethnic conflict," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    3. Liudmila I. Khoruzhy & Valery I. Khoruzhy & Bogdan S. Vasyakin & Wenhao Shen, 2022. "Program-Targeted Approach to Managing Financial Risks of Sustainable Development Based on Corporate Social Responsibility in the Decade of Action," Risks, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-20, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anette Hallin & Tina Karrbom‐Gustavsson & Peter Dobers, 2021. "Transition towards and of sustainability—Understanding sustainability as performative," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 1948-1957, May.
    2. Cory Searcy, 2016. "Measuring Enterprise Sustainability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(2), pages 120-133, February.
    3. Timo Busch & Marcel Richert & Matthew Johnson & Sven Lundie, 2020. "Climate inaction and managerial sensemaking: The case of renewable energy," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(6), pages 2502-2514, November.
    4. Roland Somlai, 2022. "Integrating decision support tools into businesses for sustainable development: A paradoxical approach to address the food waste challenge," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 1607-1622, May.
    5. William L. Smith & Yue Cai Hillon & Yanni Liang, 2019. "Reassessing measures of sustainable firm performance: A consultant's guide to identifying hidden costs in corporate disclosures," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 353-365, February.
    6. Ozgur Isil & Michael T. Hernke, 2017. "The Triple Bottom Line: A Critical Review from a Transdisciplinary Perspective," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(8), pages 1235-1251, December.
    7. James Demastus & Nancy E. Landrum, 2024. "Organizational sustainability schemes align with weak sustainability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 707-725, February.
    8. Jay Joseph & Marc Orlitzky & Bruce Gurd & Helen Borland & Adam Lindgreen, 2019. "Can business‐oriented managers be effective leaders for corporate sustainability? A study of integrative and instrumental logics," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 339-352, February.
    9. Thaís Vieira Nunhes & Enzo Viviani Garcia & Maximilian Espuny & Vitor Homem de Mello Santos & Raine Isaksson & Otávio José de Oliveira, 2021. "Where to Go with Corporate Sustainability? Opening Paths for Sustainable Businesses through the Collaboration between Universities, Governments, and Organizations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-31, January.
    10. Maria Vincenza Ciasullo & Raffaella Montera & Nicola Cucari & Francesco Polese, 2020. "How an international ambidexterity strategy can address the paradox perspective on corporate sustainability: Evidence from Chinese emerging market multinationals," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(5), pages 2110-2129, July.
    11. Michael D. Gerst & Melissa A. Kenney & Brett E. Howard & Robert J. Giraud, 2020. "A decision‐analytic approach to screening in chemical alternatives assessment," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 1597-1604, March.
    12. Anton Shevchenko & Xiaodan Pan & Goran Calic, 2020. "Exploring the effect of environmental orientation on financial decisions of businesses at the bottom of the pyramid: Evidence from the microlending context," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(5), pages 1876-1886, July.
    13. Fábio Albuquerque & Ana Isabel Dias & Alexandra Domingos, 2023. "The Students’ Intrinsic Motivation for Learning Non-Financial Information Matters from Their Self-Identification as Global Citizens," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-19, May.
    14. Merriam Haffar & Cory Searcy, 2018. "Target‐setting for ecological resilience: Are companies setting environmental sustainability targets in line with planetary thresholds?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(7), pages 1079-1092, November.
    15. Erik G. Hansen & Stefan Schaltegger, 2018. "Sustainability Balanced Scorecards and their Architectures: Irrelevant or Misunderstood?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 150(4), pages 937-952, July.
    16. J. Park & T. P. Seager & P. S. C. Rao & M. Convertino & I. Linkov, 2013. "Integrating Risk and Resilience Approaches to Catastrophe Management in Engineering Systems," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(3), pages 356-367, March.
    17. Simone Carmine & Valentina De Marchi, 2023. "Reviewing Paradox Theory in Corporate Sustainability Toward a Systems Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 184(1), pages 139-158, April.
    18. H. Mahesh Prabhu & Amit Kumar Srivastava, 2023. "CEO Transformational Leadership, Supply Chain Agility and Firm Performance: A TISM Modeling among SMEs," Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, Springer;Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management, vol. 24(1), pages 51-65, March.
    19. Rafia Afrin & Ni Peng & Frances Bowen, 2022. "The Wealth Effect of Corporate Water Actions: How Past Corporate Responsibility and Irresponsibility Influence Stock Market Reactions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 180(1), pages 105-124, September.
    20. Hörisch, Jacob & Ortas, Eduardo & Schaltegger, Stefan & Álvarez, Igor, 2015. "Environmental effects of sustainability management tools: An empirical analysis of large companies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 241-249.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jrisks:v:9:y:2021:i:11:p:186-:d:660736. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.