Title: A performance framework for corporate sustainability

Authors: Sitalakshmi Venkatraman, Raveendranath Ravi Nayak

Addresses: Graduate School of IT & Mathematical Sciences, University of Ballarat, Ballarat, Victoria 3353, Australia. ' School of Business, University of Ballarat, Ballarat, Victoria 3353, Australia

Abstract: Recent studies conducted worldwide on corporate sustainability indicate gaps in sustainability practice. Many organisations deal with their economic, social and environmental issues individually and have not explored their inter-connections. They are now required to rethink their business strategies for improving their contribution to both shareholders and society as a whole. This paper is a step further to address these gaps in sustainability practice. Through an empirical study conducted in 85 different Australia-based firms, we unearth the inter-relationships among environmental, social and economic considerations simultaneously and propose a performance framework for implementing corporate sustainability. The framework consciously interconnects the triple bottom line measures using our |Triple-I| principles of innovation, integration and interdependence that we propose within the managerial thinking. We describe the implementation of this framework in the form of a step-wise roadmap, using the Plan-Do-Check-Act quality cycle. We believe that such a practical guideline would pave way for continuous improvements in corporate sustainability performances.

Keywords: corporate sustainability; triple bottom line; social performance; environmental performance; financial performance; continuous improvement; total quality management; TQM; PDCA; plan do check act quality; performance frameworks; sustainable development; shareholders; Australia; inter-relationships; integration; interdependence; step-wise roadmaps.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIR.2010.034382

International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, 2010 Vol.4 No.5, pp.475 - 490

Published online: 02 Aug 2010 *

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