This paper provides a critical exploration of the journey metaphor promoted in much business discourse on sustainability—in corporate reports and advertisements, and in commentaries by business and professional associations. The portrayal of ‘sustainability as a journey’ evokes images of organizational adaptation, learning, progress, and a movement away from business-as-usual practices. The journey metaphor, however, masks the issue of towards what it is that businesses are actually, or even supposedly, moving. It is argued that in constructing ‘sustainability as a journey’, business commentators and other purveyors of corporate rhetoric can avoid becoming embroiled in debates about future desirable and sustainable states of affairs—states of affairs, perhaps, which would question the very raison d’être for some organizations and their outputs. ‘Sustainability as a journey’ invokes a subtle and powerful use of language that appears to seriously engage with elements of the discourse around sustainable development and sustainability, but yet at the same time, paradoxically, may serve to further reinforce business-as-usual.
This article explores the contribution a pedagogical approach based in critical theory can make to education for sustainability in business schools. In addition to the regular business and environmental management curriculum that provides tools for incremental improvement, we advocate introducing a radical change perspective aligned more with the “strong” sustainability paradigm. Concepts from critical theory can be usefully employed to bridge weak and strong sustainability paradigms. A critical skillset incorporating reflexivity, critique, and social action/engagement is elaborated and illustrated through the incorporation of these skills in the framing of an environmental management/sustainability elective and through exercises.
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the meaning of sustainable development held by New Zealand “thought leaders” and “influencers” promoting sustainability, business, or sustainable business. It seeks to compare inductively derived worldviews with theories associated with sustainability and the humanity‐nature relationship.Design/methodology/approachWorldviews were explored through a cognitive mapping exercise. A total of 21 thought leaders and influencers constructed maps of their understanding of sustainable development. These maps were analysed to reveal commonalities and differences.FindingsParticipant maps illustrated disparate levels of detail and complexity. Those participants promoting business generally emphasized the economic domain, accepting economic growth and development as the key to sustainable development. An emphasis on the environmental domain, the future, limits to the Earth's resources, and achievement through various radical means, was more commonly articulated by those promoting sustainability. Participants promoting sustainable business held elements of both approaches, combining an emphasis on the environmental domain and achievement of sustainable development by various reformist means.Research limitations/implicationsThis study identified the range of worldviews expressed by 21 thought leaders and influencers across three main domains only – promoters of sustainability, business or both. Extending this sample and exploring how these and other views arise and are represented within a wider population could be the subject of further research.Practical implicationsSuch divergence of opinion as to what connotes sustainable development across even a small sample does not bode well for its achievement. The elucidation of the worldview of promoters of sustainable business points to the need to consider more carefully the implications of environmentalism, and other aspects of sustainability, integrated into a business agenda.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to empirical research on environmental worldviews which has barely penetrated discussion of sustainability within the management and business literature. It shows cognitive mapping to be an effective technique for investigating the meaning of a conceptual theme like sustainable development.
What process of socioeconomic transformation might move humanity towards sustainabilityas-flourishing, an ideal view of sustainability where life flourishes indefinitely on Earth? We suggest entrepreneurship as one such process and review the literature on three types of entrepreneurship said to transform society by creating value beyond profit: social, environmental and sustainable entrepreneurship. From environmental and social scientific literature, we distil a set of requisites for sustainability-as-flourishing, a topic of growing interest. We then review the literature on social, environmental and sustainable entrepreneurship relative to these requisites. Findings show contributions and also limitations towards sustainability-as-flourishing reflected in research on each type of entrepreneurship. We propose a research agenda to address the most glaring limitations including a failure to study critical reflection processes that can shape entrepreneurs' actions and a lack of emphasis on the Earth's physical carrying capacity. Future research could also zero in more on complex systems thinking and consider root causes.
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