Defining “Social Sustainability”: Towards a Sustainable Solution to the Conceptual Confusion

Licht, Karl de Fine; Folland, Anna

doi:10.5324/eip.v13i2.2913

Cited by 18 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 21 publications

(26 reference statements)

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“…A distinction draws a boundary that separates one concept from others (Ansell, 2021; Dalferth, 2016). Scholars from different disciplines have developed several lists of criteria on what makes a good definition (Brülde, 2010; De Fine Licht and Folland, 2019; Gerring, 1999; Lazzeri, 2014; Oliver and Perry, 2006; van den Steen, 2018; van der Steen, 1997). This paper limits itself to the most basic requirement of a good definition, the necessary and sufficient conditions (Brennan, 2017).…”

Section: Criteria For a Good Definitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contesting Mintzberg's five Ps for strategy: it is time for a product recall

Khalifa

2022

JSMA

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to contest Mintzberg's influential “five Ps for strategy”. It exposes the negative side effect of these “five Ps” and urges a rethinking of the concept of strategy. It also points to an alternative direction for further research building on a more robust definition of strategy that does not aim to combine the five Ps but to focus instead on, and to draw boundaries around, the substance of strategy.Design/methodology/approachThe key arguments of Mintzberg's article are critically evaluated and alternative arguments are advanced.FindingsNone of the “five Ps for strategy” satisfies the criteria of a good definition. However, their impact is still evident, especially the definition of “strategy as pattern” and the idea that any decision can be “more or less” “strategic”. The “five Ps” have served their intent at the time, and their impact now is more negative than positive.Research limitations/implicationsThe “five Ps” are no longer useful in advancing the descriptive or prescriptive purposes of the strategy field. Researchers need to rethink the concept of strategy.Practical implicationsLeaders should not be confused by the “five Ps”. Instead, they should look for more rigorous and relevant definitions that help them think through their dynamic and uncertain environment.Originality/valueThis paper is probably the first to specifically contest the five definitions of strategy offered by Mintzberg and the argument behind them.

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Section: Criteria For a Good Definitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contesting Mintzberg's five Ps for strategy: it is time for a product recall

Khalifa

2022

JSMA

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“…As the discourse on SD evolved over the years, researchers have argued for SoSu to be addressed in its own right (Åhman 2013;Littig and Grießler 2005). This resulted in comprehensive reviews of academic literature, discussions on the issues and definitions of SoSu, and various conceptual frameworks of SoSu with no or limited relation to the built environment (De Fine Licht and Folland 2019;Dempsey et al 2011;Missimer et al 2017;Shirazi and Keivani 2019;Eizenberg and Jabareen 2017;Wolbring and Rybchinski 2013;Larimian and Sadeghi 2019;Boström 2012;Littig and Grießler 2005;Vallance, Perkins, and Dixon 2011). However, in comparison to the academic literature on SoSu, policy initiatives and municipal planning tools have a direct relationship to stakeholders in the built environment.…”

Section: The Disconnect Between Theory and Policy Regarding Social Sustainabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The second factor, the multi-disciplinary nature of SoSu, is related to the many disciplines involved in the study of societies. It introduces competing interests in the discourse of SoSu, once again leading to conflicting priorities (Shirazi and Keivani 2017;Åhman 2013;De Fine Licht and Folland 2019;Boström 2012).…”

Section: The Fragmented Discourse Of Social Sustainability In the Built Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards digitalisation of socially sustainable neighbourhood design

2021

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Digital tools for performance-assessment are commonly used to shorten the feedback loop in testing designs for buildings and neighbourhoods. However, these tools do not extend to the social dimension in the same way as the economic and environmental dimensions. This paper aims to contribute to the development of digital tools to design socially sustainable neighbourhoods. We analyse 115 academic articles to establish a theoretical understanding of Social Sustainability (SoSu). Based on these results, we propose a digital user-interaction model to operationalise SoSu in the digital design process of buildings. In the literature, we observe a lack of consensus on the theoretical discussion on SoSu. Several extrinsic and intrinsic factors are identified contributing to this fuzziness; the dependency on stakeholder value systems, the qualitative nature of social indicators, and comparison to environmental sustainability being the most common. Still, we distinguish two overarching categories, social equity and social capital, that are further divided into sub-themes. Having mapped the categories and hierarchies of social themes, we propose a user-interaction model that incorporates these findings into a digital environment. The userinteraction model creates a guided decision-making framework for architects and urban planners by enabling stakeholders to make conscious and informed decisions grounded in theory.

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“…When addressing Sustainability, it is common to identify three dimensions or pillars (Choi & Ng, 2011;Purvis et al, 2019): Environmental, Economic and Social. Of these three dimensions, the Social one stands out as the one that is the least understood (Afshari et al, 2022;Boyer et al, 2016;de Fine Licht & Folland, 2019;Dempsey et al, 2011), and as such, we believe it is important to add to the body of research of this particular aspect.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Shaw et al, 2022) 2. "[A] positive condition within communities, and a process within communities that can achieve that condition" (de Fine Licht & Folland, 2019), including aspects such as equity in service access and between generations, defending labor rights, cultural integration, empowerment of minorities or widespread political participation of citizens.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining and measuring the effects of digital technologies on social sustainability: A systematic literature review

Szalkowski,

Johansen

2023

Sustainable Development

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The impact of digital technologies on the environmental and economic sides of sustainability has received considerable attention. In contrast, the societal implications are quite under‐researched. Through a systematic literature review, we describe the current status of the research on the impacts that digital technologies have on social sustainability. We pay particular attention to methods used for assessing and measuring these impacts. One positive observation made from our descriptive (bibliometric) analysis is that there is an increasing interest in social sustainability. Our content analysis identified four categories, namely “Area of Impact,” “Approach to technology,” “Measured/Measurable Effect,” and “Measuring Methods”, accumulating 30 labels, which we use to classify the papers at study. A quite common label is “Jobs” as the area of impacts, whereas the least used label in the approach to technology category is “Cyber‐security,” signaling that few papers that investigate the impacts of digital technologies on social sustainability consider their security and privacy implications. Other gaps that we expose are the lack of empirical data as well as the lack of mathematical modeling when measuring the effects of digital technologies, with direct experiments appearing very seldom in the literature. In an attempt to provide a guide for future research, we identify five general research gaps, listing 20 specific research questions, and propose a structuring procedure for articles on social implications of digital technologies to be produce in a more systematic manner.

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Defining “Social Sustainability”: Towards a Sustainable Solution to the Conceptual Confusion

Cited by 18 publications

References 21 publications

Contesting Mintzberg's five Ps for strategy: it is time for a product recall

Contesting Mintzberg's five Ps for strategy: it is time for a product recall

Towards digitalisation of socially sustainable neighbourhood design

Defining and measuring the effects of digital technologies on social sustainability: A systematic literature review

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