Sustainability Strategy Chapter 16

Question 1

Sustainability strategy:

Answer 1

A plan that views economic, ethical, social, and environmental responsibilities more intensively and integrates corporate social responsibility (CSR) into all facets of the corporation’s operations.
●also referred to as a CSR strategy

Question 2

Sustainability Strategy

Answer 2

●Amoral Sustainability strategy
●Compliance-based Sustainability strategy
●Emerging Sustainability strategy
●Comprehensive Sustainability strategy

Question 3

Main Characteristics of Sustainability Strategies

Answer 3

Awareness
●Stakeholder Focus
●Management/Staff Involvement
●Board Involvement
●Ethics Program
●CSR Program
●Reporting

Question 4

Strategic management:

Answer 4

The process through which a corporation establishes its mission and objectives, analyzes the environment and resource capabilities in order to formulate strategy, creates the organizational systems and processes needed to implement the strategy, and devises mechanisms for evaluating performance.

Question 5

Sustainability Strategy and Purpose

Answer 5

Vision: A statement of what the corporation wants to become or where it wants to be at some date in the future.
●Mission: An enduring statement that specifies in broad, even philosophical, terms the organization’s “reason for being” and what distinguishes it from similar organizations.
●Values: The basic assumptions about which ideals are considered desirable or worth striving for.

Question 6

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Sustainability Strategy Formulation

Answer 6

Assessment of the external environment in which the corporation operates
●understand when and how this environment influences the corporation.
●Assessment of internal resources and capabilities
●Allows corporation to determine its ability to take advantage of opportunities in the environment and to overcome any threats.

Question 7

Sustainability Strategy Formulation

Answer 7

Establishment of objectives
●the ends the corporation seeks to achieve through its existence and operations.
●CSR strategy options and selection
●Beliefs: The basic assumptions about the world in which an individual operates and how it works.
●Corporate culture: The complex set of values, beliefs, assumptions, and symbols that define the way in which an organization conducts its business.

Question 8

Sustainability Strategy Implementation

Answer 8

Sustainability implementation includes:
●designing the corporation’s structure;
●allocating resources;
●developing information and decision-making processes; and
●managing human resources, including such areas as the reward system, approaches to leadership, and staffing.

Question 9

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Sustainability Strategy Evaluation

Answer 9

It is important to have continuous monitoring and reviewing of the strategic management process
●It has become important to incorporate social policies into the strategic management process:
●Business legitimacy depends on it.
●Government can legislate compliance regulations.
●Business’s success and continued existence are interrelated with social policies.

Question 10

Achieving a sustainable strategy

Answer 10

●CSR model should become a corporate social integration model approach, which would integrate social perspective with business strategy.
●CSR should be an opportunity, innovation, and competitive advantage.

Question 11

Prevailing Justifications for CSR

Answer 11

●Moral Obligation
●Sustainability
●Licence to Operate
●Reputation

Question 12

Corporate Social Integration
Model Approach

Answer 12

CSR should identify points of intersection between business and society then create a corporate social agenda, and integrate inside-out and outside-in linkages.
●inside-out linkages: represent the corporation’s positive and negative influence on society through its operations.
●outside-in linkages: represent society’s positive and negative influences on the corporation.

Question 13

Three Types of Social issues

Answer 13

Generic: do not significantly affect the corporation but are important to society.
●Value chain: significantly affected by the corporation as it carries out business.
●Social dimensions of competitive context: factors in the external environment that significantly affect the underlying drivers of competitiveness where the company operates.

Question 14

Business Programs and Sustainability

Answer 14

Business schools are responding to the increasing awareness of the ethics of business and corporate social responsibilities.
●The response takes various forms and business education programs are feeling the impact.

Question 15

Argument For Teaching Ethics

Answer 15

Many immoral or unethical events taking place.
●Business environment is changing radically and students must be made aware of this.
●Provide students with some tools or techniques for analyzing ethical issues.
●Ethics courses legitimize the consideration of ethical components as an integral part of managerial decision making.

Question 16

Argument against teaching ethics

Answer 16

Business ethics are not a major problem.
●There is little likelihood that it can alter the ethical behaviour of students.
●There are few qualified teachers of ethics in business and management departments.
●Many business problems involve ethical considerations that are not resolvable.
●A separate ethics course suggests that ethics are considered “separate” in decision making.