Oliver Salzmann

Moving Business/Industry Towards Sustainable Consumption:: The Role of NGOs

The negative environmental impact of current consumption patterns is increasing and becoming more evident. Household/consumer behavior plays a significant role in shaping these patterns. A growing number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are focusing on this issue. The paper1 examines how NGOs could play an important role as partners to business/industry in promoting sustainable consumption. It exhibits a number of mini case studies on innovative partnerships for product development, labeling, green purchasing, etc. Two essential factors for success have been identified: (1) Consumers need to feel empowered to make a difference through their behavior. (2) They should also be able to improve their quality of life. Furthermore, direct consumer outreach and partnerships with retailers are recommended as effective means of changing consumption patterns.

The economic foundations of corporate sustainability

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to fill the void of empirical cross‐industry research in the area of corporate sustainability management and its business case.Design/methodology/approach – Nine industries (oil and gas, utility, aviation, automotive, chemical, pharmaceutical, technology, financial services and food and beverage) are compared in terms of their environmental and social issues, the pressure they face from their stakeholders, and the resulting business case for corporate sustainability. For this approach, a mixed methods design was employed featuring semi‐structured interviews with managers (sustainability experts, business managers from various functions) and external stakeholders); and self‐completion questionnaires (also targeting sustainability experts and business managers) to collect complementary quantitative data. It was possible to draw upon more than 400 interviews and 1,100 questionnaires.Findings – It was ascertained that the business case is clearly sector‐specific and diff...

Managing external pressures through corporate diplomacy

Todays corporations face many demands from a plethora of different stakeholders, which are often incongruous. While shareholders demand a decent return on their investment, employees demand safe and well-paid jobs, communities stress upon their tax revenues and public pressure groups call for more social and environmental responsibility. Corporations thus require a great deal of corporate diplomacy to prioritise and – where necessary and possible – reconcile these different demands. This paper describes a framework for managerial/corporate attitudes and external pressure levels. Four case studies illustrate varying attitudes towards corporate diplomacy determine the outcome of controversies over genetically modified food products.

The Evolution of Modern Corporate Governance

The roots of corporate governance go back to the emergence of capitalism and modern stock corporations, the rise of world trade and the big multinational companies that grew up during the “Industrial Revolution” in the early nineteenth century. The discussion about good and bad corporate governance has been ongoing for many years (under a variety of monikers) and has culminated during various crises — most importantly the bursting of speculative “bubbles” which have occurred since 1852 (for more details see Steger and Amann, 2008). External auditing practices and rules on published balance sheets — everything we consider standard procedure today — are a result of these dynamics. The emergence of, and current responsibilities attributed to, the “Company Secretary” is no exception.

Analyzing Causal Effects

In the above chapters we have outlined potential causal effects on a case-by-case basis while reporting on the evidence collected through our interviews. In this chapter we present findings from a regression analysis of the quantitative data obtained from our self-completion questionnaire, designed to systematically detect causal relationships. Our analysis is intentionally somewhat exploratory; we wished to exploit the opportunity presented to us in the form of our unique dataset. We also wanted to test for a wide range of causal effects, some of which we knew were unlikely but not inconceivable.

Conclusion — Where Are We Heading?

Given the huge diversity that our research has revealed, it is highly unlikely that there will be a “standard” company secretary across different industries, ownership forms, or legal frameworks. However, based on our research, we are able to identify the drivers that will shape the options and the “space” in which the role of the company secretary will evolve. This expansion is most likely to involve the more prominent role of a “corporate governance officer.”