IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/corsem/v13y2006i3p150-165.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Approaches to corporate sustainability among German companies

Author

Listed:
  • Tobias Hahn
  • Mandy Scheermesser

Abstract

In this article we present the results of an online survey on the state of corporate sustainability in German companies. The survey focused on the meaning and relevance of sustainability to German companies, the motivations behind their commitment to sustainability and the use of different management tools to implement sustainability in corporate practice. Although the majority of the companies declared that sustainability plays an important role, our analysis reveals considerable differences between these companies' approaches to corporate sustainability. A cluster analysis enables us to distinguish between three significantly distinct types of approach to corporate sustainability among the respondents: sustainability leaders, environmentalists and traditionalists. These three types are characterized and discussed against previous research. The results suggest that there are substantial differences with regard to the motivation for and the implementation of corporate sustainability that are covered behind the corporate rhetoric of a high commitment to sustainability. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Tobias Hahn & Mandy Scheermesser, 2006. "Approaches to corporate sustainability among German companies," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(3), pages 150-165, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:corsem:v:13:y:2006:i:3:p:150-165
    DOI: 10.1002/csr.100
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.100
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/csr.100?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sandra A. Waddock & Samuel B. Graves, 1997. "The Corporate Social Performance–Financial Performance Link," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 303-319, April.
    2. Seung‐Kyu Rhee & Su‐Yol Lee, 2003. "Dynamic change of corporate environmental strategy: rhetoric and reality," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(3), pages 175-190, May.
    3. Günterberg, Brigitte & Kayser, Gunter, 2004. "SMEs in Germany: Facts and figures 2004," IfM-Materialien 161, Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (IfM) Bonn.
    4. Eric W. Welch & Yasuhumi Mori & Midori Aoyagi‐Usui, 2002. "Voluntary adoption of ISO 14001 in Japan: mechanisms, stages and effects," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(1), pages 43-62, January.
    5. Rondinelli, Dennis & Vastag, Gyula, 2000. "Panacea, common sense, or just a label?: The value of ISO 14001 environmental management systems," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 499-510, October.
    6. R. Scott Marshall & Mark Cordano & Murray Silverman, 2005. "Exploring individual and institutional drivers of proactive environmentalism in the US Wine industry," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(2), pages 92-109, March.
    7. Abagail McWilliams & Donald Siegel, 2000. "Corporate social responsibility and financial performance: correlation or misspecification?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(5), pages 603-609, May.
    8. Ataur Rahman Belal, 2002. "Stakeholder accountability or stakeholder management: a review of UK firms' social and ethical accounting, auditing and reporting (SEAAR) practices," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(1), pages 8-25, March.
    9. Necmi Karagozoglu & Martin Lindell, 2000. "Environmental Management: Testing the Win-Win Model," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(6), pages 817-829.
    10. Aseem Prakash, 2001. "Why do firms adopt ‘beyond‐compliance’ environmental policies?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(5), pages 286-299, September.
    11. Christine Oliver, 1997. "Sustainable competitive advantage: combining institutional and resource‐based views," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(9), pages 697-713, October.
    12. Frank Figge, 2005. "Value‐based environmental management. From environmental shareholder value to environmental option value," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(1), pages 19-30, March.
    13. Morrow, David & Rondinelli, Dennis, 2002. "Adopting Corporate Environmental Management Systems:: Motivations and Results of ISO 14001 and EMAS Certification," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 159-171, April.
    14. Giles Atkinson, 2000. "Measuring Corporate Sustainability," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(2), pages 235-252.
    15. Huizing, Ard & Dekker, H. Carel, 1992. "Helping to pull our planet out of the red: An environmental report of BSO/Origin," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 449-458, July.
    16. Cerin, Pontus & Karlson, Lennart, 2002. "Business incentives for sustainability: a property rights approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 13-22, January.
    17. Al-Tuwaijri, Sulaiman A. & Christensen, Theodore E. & Hughes, K. II, 2004. "The relations among environmental disclosure, environmental performance, and economic performance: a simultaneous equations approach," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 29(5-6), pages 447-471.
    18. Gray, Rob, 1992. "Accounting and environmentalism: An exploration of the challenge of gently accounting for accountability, transparency and sustainability," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 399-425, July.
    19. Thomas Dyllick & Kai Hockerts, 2002. "Beyond the business case for corporate sustainability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(2), pages 130-141, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Tobias Hahn & Frank Figge & Jonatan Pinkse & Lutz Preuss, 2010. "Trade‐offs in corporate sustainability: you can't have your cake and eat it," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(4), pages 217-229, May.
    2. Tobias Hahn & Frank Figge, 2011. "Beyond the Bounded Instrumentality in Current Corporate Sustainability Research: Toward an Inclusive Notion of Profitability," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 104(3), pages 325-345, December.
    3. Hayam Wahba, 2010. "How do institutional shareholders manipulate corporate environmental strategy to protect their equity value? A study of the adoption of ISO 14001 by Egyptian firms," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(8), pages 495-511, December.
    4. Figge, Frank & Hahn, Tobias, 2004. "Sustainable Value Added--measuring corporate contributions to sustainability beyond eco-efficiency," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 173-187, February.
    5. Castilla Polo, Francisca & Gallardo Vázquez, Dolores, 2008. "Social information within the intellectual capital report," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 353-363, December.
    6. Omaima A.G. Hassan & Peter Romilly, 2018. "Relations between corporate economic performance, environmental disclosure and greenhouse gas emissions: New insights," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(7), pages 893-909, November.
    7. María Luisa Pajuelo Moreno & Teresa Duarte-Atoche, 2019. "Relationship between Sustainable Disclosure and Performance—An Extension of Ullmann’s Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-33, August.
    8. Samy Garas & Osama El-Temtamy, 2020. "The “simultaneous cycle” between corporate social responsibility and firms’ financial performance," International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 17(2), pages 39-50, September.
    9. Mehrnaz Ashrafi & Gregory M. Magnan & Michelle Adams & Tony R. Walker, 2020. "Understanding the Conceptual Evolutionary Path and Theoretical Underpinnings of Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-17, January.
    10. G Capece & F Di Pillo & M Gastaldi & N Levialdi & M Miliacca, 2017. "Examining the effect of managing GHG emissions on business performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(8), pages 1041-1060, December.
    11. Assunta Di Vaio & Luisa Varriale & Angelo Di Gregorio & Samuel Adomako, 2022. "Corporate social performance and non‐financial reporting in the cruise industry: Paving the way towards UN Agenda 2030," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(6), pages 1931-1953, November.
    12. Irene Wei Kiong Ting & Noor Azlinna Azizan & Rajesh Kumar Bhaskaran & Sujit K Sukumaran, 2019. "Corporate Social Performance and Firm Performance: Comparative Study among Developed and Emerging Market Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-21, December.
    13. Tolossa Fufa Gulema & Yadessa Tadesse Roba, 2021. "Internal and external determinants of corporate social responsibility practices in multinational enterprise subsidiaries in developing countries: evidence from Ethiopia," Future Business Journal, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 1-19, December.
    14. Ehsan Poursoleyman & Gholamreza Mansourfar & Mohammad Kabir Hassan & Saeid Homayoun, 2024. "Did Corporate Social Responsibility Vaccinate Corporations Against COVID-19?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 189(3), pages 525-551, January.
    15. Matteo Pozzoli & Marcello Raffaele, 2022. "Non-financial information and company market value," MANAGEMENT CONTROL, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2022(2 Suppl.), pages 167-187.
    16. Wolfgang Schultze & Ramona Trommer, 2012. "The concept of environmental performance and its measurement in empirical studies," Metrika: International Journal for Theoretical and Applied Statistics, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 375-412, January.
    17. 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.
    18. Nour Chams & Josep García-Blandón & Khaled Hassan, 2021. "Role Reversal! Financial Performance as an Antecedent of ESG: The Moderating Effect of Total Quality Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-18, June.
    19. Corinna Dögl & Michael Behnam, 2015. "Environmentally Sustainable Development through Stakeholder Engagement in Developed and Emerging Countries," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(6), pages 583-600, September.
    20. Iram Hasan & Shveta Singh & Smita Kashiramka, 2022. "Does corporate social responsibility disclosure impact firm performance? An industry-wise analysis of Indian firms," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(8), pages 10141-10181, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:wly:corsem:v:13:y:2006:i:3:p:150-165. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1535-3966 .

    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.