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Business Management for Sustainability

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  • John Ikerd

    (Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211, USA)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to address a fundamental flaw in prominent approaches to managing businesses for sustainability. Current management strategies fail to recognize the fundamental differences between economic, social, and moral or ethical values. Economic values are instrumental, individual, and impersonal. Social values are reciprocal, communal, and personal. Moral values are altruistic, spiritual, and universal. These are not arbitrary definitions but expressions of basic differences among the three types of value. These differences reveal the fundamental flaws in attempts to assign economic value or objectively quantify the social and ecological costs and benefits of economic enterprises. The transactional, social, and moral economies are defined in ways that avoid compromising the differences in values. In addition, a natural hierarchy exists among nature, society, and economy that requires a corresponding hierarchy of moral, social, and economic values in managing sustainable organizations. The strategies, motives, and metrics that have dominated sustainable business management for the past several decades, and the related research and educational programs that support them, fail to reflect differences among economic, social, and moral values that are critical to sustainability.

Suggested Citation

  • John Ikerd, 2024. "Business Management for Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(9), pages 1-19, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:9:p:3714-:d:1385463
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    2. Benedict Sheehy, 2015. "Defining CSR: Problems and Solutions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 625-648, October.
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