IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/bstrat/v12y2003i1p1-11.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An ‘incitement to discourse’: benchmarking as a springboard to sustainable development

Author

Listed:
  • Delyse Springett

Abstract

Benchmarking, while belonging to the array of instruments associated with eco‐efficiency, eco‐modernism and ‘political sustainability’, provides a way in which corporations can be held to account in terms of their environmental and social responsibility. New Zealand lacked such benchmarks until the annual Survey of Corporate Environmental Responsiveness was introduced for top companies by turnover in 1999, exposing the myth of ‘clean and green’ New Zealand as far as environmental management of business was concerned, but providing a measure that has become a driver for many companies. The paper discusses outcomes of the benchmarking survey and describes how it has been employed as a Foucauldian ‘incitement to discourse’ with a focus group of participating companies, engaging them in a more dialectical discourse of sustainable development based in Critical Theory and perspectives from Foucault. Maori speak of their ‘turangawaewae’–having a ‘place to stand’. The survey provided the broader research programme with that place to stand in terms of creating a meaningful position for the researchers, and a degree of legitimacy, within the business context. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Delyse Springett, 2003. "An ‘incitement to discourse’: benchmarking as a springboard to sustainable development," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), pages 1-11, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:12:y:2003:i:1:p:1-11
    DOI: 10.1002/bse.345
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.345
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/bse.345?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. A. Ghobadian & H. Viney & J. Liu & P. James, 1998. "Extending linear approaches to mapping corporate environmental behaviour," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(1), pages 13-23, February.
    2. Delyse Springett & Kate Kearins, 2001. "Gaining legitimacy? Sustainable development in business school curricula," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(4), pages 213-221.
    3. Patrick O'Mahony & Tracey Skillington, 1996. "Sustainable Development As An Organizing Principle For Discursive Democracy?," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(1), pages 42-51.
    4. Tim Newton & George Harte, 1997. "Green Business: Technicist Kitsch?," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(1), pages 75-98, January.
    5. R. J. Welford, 1998. "Editorial: Corporate environmental management, technology and sustainable development: postmodern perspectives and the need for a critical research agenda," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(1), pages 1-12, February.
    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. Thomas Koellner & Olaf Weber & Marcus Fenchel & Roland Scholz, 2005. "Principles for sustainability rating of investment funds," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 54-70, January.

    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. Tom Thomas & Eric Lamm, 2012. "Legitimacy and Organizational Sustainability," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 110(2), pages 191-203, October.
    2. Delyse Springett, 2005. "‘Education for sustainability’ in the business studies curriculum: a call for a critical agenda," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(3), pages 146-159, May.
    3. Jenny Ählström & Monica Macquet & Ulf Richter, 2009. "The lack of a critical perspective in environmental management research: distortion in the scientific discourse," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(5), pages 334-346, July.
    4. Bruce Clemens & Charles E. Bamford & Thomas J. Douglas, 2008. "Choosing strategic responses to address emerging environmental regulations: size, perceived influence and uncertainty," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(8), pages 493-511, December.
    5. Frances Drake & Martin Purvis & Jane Hunt, 2004. "Meeting the environmental challenge: a case of win–win or lose–win? A study of the UK baking and refrigeration industries," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(3), pages 172-186, May.
    6. Álvarez Gil, M. J. & Burgos Jiménez, J. & Céspedes Lorente, J. J., 2001. "An analysis of environmental management, organizational context and performance of Spanish hotels," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 457-471, December.
    7. Stefan Seuring, 2004. "Industrial ecology, life cycles, supply chains: differences and interrelations," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(5), pages 306-319, September.
    8. Christoph Bey, 2001. "Changing economies of scale – synergies between implementation of an ecological tax reform and development of industrial ecosystems," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(6), pages 383-393, November.
    9. Saikku, Laura & Rautiainen, Aapo & Kauppi, Pekka E., 2008. "The sustainability challenge of meeting carbon dioxide targets in Europe by 2020," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 730-742, February.
    10. Matias Laine, 2009. "Ensuring legitimacy through rhetorical changes?," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 22(7), pages 1029-1054, September.
    11. Moses Nyakuwanika & Huibrecht Margaretha van der Poll & John Andrew van der Poll, 2021. "A Conceptual Framework for Greener Goldmining through Environmental Management Accounting Practices (EMAPs): The Case of Zimbabwe," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-26, September.
    12. Marileena Koskela & Jarmo Vehmas, 2012. "Defining Eco‐efficiency: A Case Study on the Finnish Forest Industry," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(8), pages 546-566, December.
    13. Janet Judy McIntyre‐Mills, 2013. "Anthropocentrism and Well‐being: A Way Out of the Lobster Pot?," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 136-155, March.
    14. 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.
    15. Claudia Marcela Betancourt Morales & Jhon Wilder Zartha Sossa, 2020. "Circular economy in Latin America: A systematic literature review," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 2479-2497, September.
    16. Romy Morana & Stefan Seuring, 2011. "A Three Level Framework for Closed-Loop Supply Chain Management—Linking Society, Chain and Actor Level," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 3(4), pages 1-14, April.
    17. 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.
    18. Colin Dey, 2007. "Social accounting at Traidcraft plc," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 20(3), pages 423-445, June.
    19. Anselm Schneider, 2015. "Reflexivity in Sustainability Accounting and Management: Transcending the Economic Focus of Corporate Sustainability," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 525-536, March.
    20. Calbert H. Douglas, 2006. "Small island states and territories: sustainable development issues and strategies - challenges for changing islands in a changing world," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(2), pages 75-80.

    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:bla:bstrat:v:12:y:2003:i:1:p:1-11. 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: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-0836 .

    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.