scholarly journals Sustainable Evolution for Global Business: A Synthetic Review of the Literature

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. J. Chang

<p>This paper reviews the recent literature on business sustainability. While it is almost impossible to give a universally agreeable definition of “sustainability” due to its scope, depth, and inclusive nature, this paper reviews a fairly large set of research efforts, both empirical and normative, that examine the sustainability issue in regards to the theoretical development, the interface between business and society, the interrelationships among firms, markets, and the public interest, sustainability measurement and assessment, as well as the changes, developments, and evolution in recent years along those lines. The uniqueness of the study is to review the literature by following the developmental and evolutionary sequences in business sustainability in order to shed light on how the concept of corporate sustainability has evolved from the traditional shareholders-focused neoclassical view and how it is advanced from the ideas of environmentalism, stakeholder theory, and CSR.</p>

Author(s):  
Vimal Kumar Eswarlal ◽  
Martina Vallesi

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain the different stages of business sustainability through a visual metaphor. This metaphor compares the interaction between the different variables of sustainability to the interaction between the colour wheels in the Interconnected Spinning colour wheel. As a result of this comparison, we propose the different stages of business sustainability. Design/methodology/approach – Domains-interaction model approach is used to develop the metaphor. Findings – The four stages of the business sustainability system resulting from this metaphor are: designable, feasible, endurable and responsible. Research limitations – We recognize that a visual metaphor provides only a limited insight, which is a general drawback of a metaphor. Practical implications – This visual metaphor as a tool will help practitioners, students and academics to easily understand the concept of business sustainability and the various stages of the system. This new perspective can support the practitioners in making effective decisions for sustainability. Originality/value – This paper contributes in the field of corporate sustainability through the novel visual metaphor proposed. This metaphor can enhance the theoretical development in this field by approaching the concept of corporate sustainability from a different perspective.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 306-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Clarke

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to trace the evolution of corporate governance through a series of changing paradigms in response to wider transformations in the political economy, business and society. The different eras of governance, and the dominant theoretical and practical paradigms are highlighted. In a context where the adequacy of the dominant paradigms of corporate governance is increasingly challenged, the search for coherent new paradigms is a vital task in corporate governance. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a conceptual analysis of evolving paradigms in corporate governance. Findings – To meet the imminent challenge of social and environmental sustainability in a post-carbon economy, further rethinking of corporate purpose, corporate governance and directors duties will be essential. This sustainability revolution has only just commenced, but in the course of the twenty-first century, it will transform both business and society. Research limitations/implications – The implications of the research concern the importance of conceptualising corporate governance through different eras and paradigms, and appreciating that further paradigm shifts will occur in response to transformations in the political economy and ecology. Practical implications – This paper informs on the importance of the transformation of business purpose and objectives in response to the imminent dangers of environmental and social collapse. Social implications – This paper emphasises the social and environmental dimensions of corporate activity, and how these must be considered in the definition of wealth generation. Originality/value – The contribution of this paper is to focus upon the increasing integration of corporate governance and corporate sustainability, and how this is essential for the reformulation of corporate purpose and objectives.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Burrell Nickell ◽  
Robin W. Roberts

ABSTRACT The United Nations, federal governments and their agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), shareholder activists, private sector standard setters, and academic researchers, as well as many others, are taking actions to improve corporations' accountability regarding the environmental and social impacts of their operations. These actions have helped propel a rapid increase in voluntary corporate sustainability reporting. Although the uptake in sustainability reporting has received a significant amount of support from relevant and respected organizations, academic and policy debates continue over whether voluntary corporate sustainability reports can monitor corporate activities effectively. While some researchers view these reports as signals of superior actions, others argue that they provide corporations with an opportunity to obfuscate their actual social and environmental performance through selective and incomplete disclosure strategies. The purpose of this commentary is to advocate for accounting researchers, regardless of their theoretical framework, research question, or method, to use a more inclusive definition of the public interest when performing corporate sustainability reporting research. We believe that a more inclusive public interest definition is required due to: (1) the broad impact of corporate social and environmental activities on global climate change and planetary sustainability; (2) a tendency for financial market accounting research to focus strictly on economic-based, potential corporate net benefits or costs derived from voluntary corporate sustainability reporting; and (3) the need to acknowledge the collective action problem inherent in developing policies dealing with corporate sustainable development activities and reporting. By using a more inclusive definition of the public interest in corporate sustainability reporting research, the accounting research community can contribute more positively to society's understanding of how well corporations are meeting and reporting on their significant public interest responsibilities related to the climate change consequences of their operations.


Author(s):  
Sulaman Hafeez Siddiqui ◽  
Kuperan Viswanathan ◽  
Rabia Rasheed

Leadership in business and society is responsible for a large part of the decision-making related to policymaking and resource allocation that in turn influences social and environmental outcomes and economic windfalls. The theory and practice of education and learning in business schools is being called on for reforms in order to nurture responsible leadership for business and society that may align well with the triple bottom-line challenge of sustainability (i.e., economic, social, and environmental). We can find state-of-the-art research studies from definition to historical evolution and dimensions of responsible leadership specifically related to corporate sustainability. The role of curriculum design is central to enabling business schools to nurture responsible leaders who are considerate toward the external effects of their internal decision-making, thus seeking to balance the broader stakeholders’ objectives. Several global initiatives have been undertaken by multilateral institutions such as the UN, business schools, and enterprises in the corporate sector to foster a commitment to responsible leadership and allied reforms in teaching in business schools regarding corporate sustainability. These forums, at both the corporate and academic fronts, have contributed to theoretical development and practices for teaching and learning related to responsible leadership in higher education, specifically in business schools. These initiatives stress that business schools and their academic faculty, who intend to serve as custodians of business and society, must make necessary curriculum reforms to meet the challenges of sustainability by embracing their own transformation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Anatolyevna Kirillova ◽  
Teymur El'darovich Zulfugarzade ◽  
Oleg Evgenyevich Blinkov ◽  
Olga Aleksandrovna Serova ◽  
Irina Aleksandrovna Mikhaylova

The study considers the prospects for the legal regulation of public and private digital platforms. Digital platforms have replaced linear businesses and changed economic principles. The transition to digital technologies in the economy, business, and society substantiates the need for their legal regulation. The study aims at considering the legal status of public and private digital platforms, developing a new conceptual framework, determining the key features of digital platforms, and analyzing the prospects for developing legal regulation in this area. The paper compared management contexts in the public and commercial sectors. With the help of the generalization method, criteria for a new classification of digital platforms were proposed. The article used such methods as analysis, synthesis, deduction, and induction. The study represents a new definition of digital platforms, classifies them, and concludes that the introduction of special regulation of public and private digital platforms might require preliminary approbation, for example, in the form of an experimental legal regime. To ensure the comprehensive regulation of the activities of digital platforms, it is necessary to adopt international concepts that would allow creating uniform terms and principles. At the same time, regulation should consider the specifics of the existing regulation. On the one hand, it will be based on the dispositive method; on the other hand, it will be built over the imperative method.


2017 ◽  
pp. 5-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristian Carini ◽  
Laura Rocca ◽  
Claudio Teodori ◽  
Monica Veneziani

The European Commission initiated a discussion on the expediency of using the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), based on the IAS/IFRS, as a common base for harmonizing the public sector accounting systems of the member states. However, literature suggests that accounting is not neutral with respect to the economic, social and political dimensions. In the perspective of evolution of the accounting regulation outlined, balanced between accountability, with the need to represent phenomena for reporting pur-poses, and decisionmaking issues, which concentrates on the quantitative importance of the values, the paper aims to analyse the effects of the application of different criteria for the definition of the reporting entity of the local government consolidated financial statements (CFS). The Italian PCA 4/4, the test of control and the financial accountability approaches are examined. The evidence that emerged from the case studies examined identifies several criticalities in the Italian PCA 4/4 and support the thesis that the financial accountability approach is more effective in providing a complete representation of the public resources entrusted to and managed by the group, whereas the control approach better approximates quantification of the group results in terms of central government surveillance. The analysis highlights the importance of the post implementation review period and the opportunity to contextualize the adoption of the consolidated financial statement in the broader spectrum of the accounting harmonization process, participating in the process of definition of the European Public Sector Accounting Standards (EPSAS).


Resonance ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 298-327
Author(s):  
Shuhei Hosokawa

Drawing on Karin Bijsterveld’s triple definition of noise as ownership, political responsibility, and causal responsibility, this article traces how modern Japan problematized noise, and how noise represented both the aspirational discourse of Western civilization and the experiential nuisance accompanying rapid changes in living conditions in 1920s Japan. Primarily based on newspaper archives, the analysis will approach the problematic of noise as it was manifested in different ways in the public and private realms. In the public realm, the mid-1920s marked a turning point due to the reconstruction work after the Great Kantô Earthquake (1923) and the spread of the use of radios, phonographs, and loudspeakers. Within a few years, public opinion against noise had been formed by a coalition of journalists, police, the judiciary, engineers, academics, and municipal officials. This section will also address the legal regulation of noise and its failure; because public opinion was “owned” by middle-class (sub)urbanites, factory noises in downtown areas were hardly included in noise abatement discourse. Around 1930, the sounds of radios became a social problem, but the police and the courts hesitated to intervene in a “private” conflict, partly because they valued radio as a tool for encouraging nationalist mobilization and transmitting announcements from above. In sum, this article investigates the diverse contexts in which noise was perceived and interpreted as such, as noise became an integral part of modern life in early 20th-century Japan.


2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (Special Issue) ◽  
pp. 87-103
Author(s):  
Noémi Bíró

"Feminist Interpretations of Action and the Public in Hannah Arendt’s Theory. Arendt’s typology of human activity and her arguments on the precondition of politics allow for a variety in interpretations for contemporary political thought. The feminist reception of Arendt’s work ranges from critical to conciliatory readings that attempt to find the points in which Arendt’s theory might inspire a feminist political project. In this paper I explore the ways in which feminist thought has responded to Arendt’s definition of action, freedom and politics, and whether her theoretical framework can be useful in a feminist rethinking of politics, power and the public realm. Keywords: Hannah Arendt, political action, the Public, the Social, feminism "


2016 ◽  
pp. 52-65
Author(s):  
Patryk Kołodyński ◽  
Paulina Drab

Over the past several years, transplantology has become one of the fastest developing areas of medicine. The reason is, first and foremost, a significant improvement of the results of successful transplants. However, much controversy arouse among the public, on both medical and ethical grounds. The article presents the most important concepts and regulations relating to the collection and transplantation of organs and tissues in the context of the European Convention on Bioethics. It analyses the convention and its additional protocol. The article provides the definition of transplantation and distinguishes its types, taking into account the medical criteria for organ transplants. Moreover, authors explained the issue of organ donation ex vivo and ex mortuo. The European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine clearly regulates the legal aspects concerning the transplantation and related basic concepts, and therefore provides a reliable source of information about organ transplantation and tissue. This act is a part of the international legal order, which includes the established codification of bioethical standards.


Author(s):  
Olga Mykhailоvna Ivanitskaya

The article is devoted to issues of ensuring transparency and ac- countability of authorities in the conditions of participatory democracy (democ- racy of participation). It is argued that the public should be guaranteed not only the right for access to information but also the prerequisites for expanding its par- ticipation in state governance. These prerequisites include: the adoption of clearly measurable macroeconomic and social goals and the provision of control of the processes of their compliance with the government by citizens of the country; ex- tension of the circle of subjects of legislative initiative due to realization of such rights by citizens and their groups; legislative definition of the forms of citizens’ participation in making publicly significant decisions, design of relevant orders and procedures, in particular participation in local referendum; outlining methods and procedures for taking into account social thought when making socially im- portant decisions. The need to disclose information about resources that are used by authorities to realize the goals is proved as well as key performance indicators that can be monitored by every citizen; the efforts made by governments of coun- tries to achieve these goals. It was noted that transparency in the conditions of representative democracy in its worst forms in a society where ignorance of the thought of society and its individual members is ignored does not in fact fulfill its main task — to establish an effective dialogue between the authorities and so- ciety. There is a distortion of the essence of transparency: instead of being heard, society is being asked to be informed — and passively accept the facts presented as due. In fact, transparency and accountability in this case are not instruments for the achievement of democracy in public administration, but by the form of a tacit agreement between the subjects of power and people, where the latter passes the participation of an “informed observer”.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document