Defining and Measuring Corporate Sustainability

TLDR

This literature review seeks to clarify corporate sustainability research and offer recommendations for advancing the field. The review analyzes CS research volume from 1995–2013 and synthesizes definitions, theories, and measurement approaches used in academic and practitioner literature. Findings indicate that corporate sustainability research remains evolving, with diverse definitions, theories, and metrics, and that scholar‑focused and practitioner‑focused literature differ in their approaches.

Abstract

This literature review article aims to bring a better understanding to the field of corporate sustainability (CS) as studied by management scholars. The first part of this review quantifies the amount of research devoted to CS and related topics such as corporate social responsibility, corporate social performance, environmental strategies and environmental performance from 1995 through 2013. The authors then summarize the different definitions, organizational theories, and measures that have been adopted by management scholars working in the CS field in both academic and practitioner management journals. The results show that the CS field is still evolving and different approaches to define, theorize, and measure CS have been used. Differences are also found between the literature that targets scholars versus the one targeting practitioners. The authors also provide a set of recommendations on how to advance the CS field.