Corporate Sustainable Development: Testing a New Scale Based on the Mainland Chinese Context

According to the predominant corporate sustainable development (CSD) framework, this exploratory paper verifies that CSD construct can be modeled by integrating the dimensions of social, economic, and environmental development. We first developed and validated measurement scales for these three dimensions based on a survey of 314 managers in mainland China. Then, using structural equation modelling, we confirmed that the proposed model is valid. Therefore, our findings may allow researchers to explore CSD further, and practitioners to develop their understanding of CSD initiatives in organizations.

[1]  David J. Ketchen,et al.  AN ASSESSMENT OF THE USE OF STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING IN STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT RESEARCH , 2004 .

[2]  Ivan Vera,et al.  Energy indicators for sustainable development , 2007 .

[3]  C. Garcés‐Ayerbe,et al.  Why do patterns of environmental response differ? A stakeholders' pressure approach , 2008 .

[4]  Wolfgang Ulaga.  Capturing value creation in business relationships: A customer perspective , 2003 .

[5]  M. V. Marrewijk.  Concepts and definitions of CSR and corporate sustainability: Between agency and communion , 2013 .

[6]  Stefan Schmid,et al.  The Stakeholder Theory , 2006 .

[7]  J. Elkington.  Cannibals with Forks , 1997 .

[8]  G. Huber,et al.  Retrospective reports of strategic‐level managers: Guidelines for increasing their accuracy , 1985 .

[9]  J. H. Steiger.  Structural Model Evaluation and Modification: An Interval Estimation Approach. , 1990, Multivariate behavioral research.

[10]  H. Marsh,et al.  Application of confirmatory factor analysis to the study of self-concept: First- and higher order factor models and their invariance across groups. , 1985 .

[11]  S. Hart.  A Natural-Resource-Based View of the Firm , 1995 .

[12]  R. P. McDonald,et al.  Structural Equations with Latent Variables , 1989 .

[13]  A. Seth.  Value creation in acquisitions: A re‐examination of performance issues , 1990 .

[14]  Michael E. Porter,et al.  Green and Competitive : Ending the Stalemate , 1996 .

[15]  Michael V. Russo,et al.  The emergence of sustainable industries: building on natural capital , 2003 .

[16]  J. Nunnally.  Psychometric Theory (2nd ed), New York: McGraw-Hill. , 1978 .

[17]  M. Starik,et al.  Weaving An Integrated Web: Multilevel and Multisystem Perspectives of Ecologically Sustainable Organizations , 1995 .

[18]  R. Walker,et al.  Sustainability, performance and organizational strategy: an empirical analysis of public organizations , 2008 .

[19]  Xueming Luo,et al.  Corporate Social Responsibility, Customer Satisfaction, and Market Value , 2006 .

[20]  Reinhard Steurer,et al.  Empirical Findings on Business–Society Relations in Europe , 2006 .

[21]  R. Ivey.  EVOLVING SUSTAINABLY : A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF CORPORATE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT , 2005 .

[22]  S. Ghoshal,et al.  Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the Organizational Advantage , 1998 .

[23]  A. Lindgreen,et al.  Purchasing and Marketing of Social and Environmental Sustainability for High-Tech Medical Equipment , 2009 .

[24]  Ramazan Sarı,et al.  Sustainability in the Turkish retailing industry , 2009 .

[25]  Thomas Dyllick,et al.  Beyond the business case for corporate sustainability , 2002 .

[26]  Michael J. Ellenbecker,et al.  Indicators of sustainable production: framework and methodology , 2001 .

[27]  D. Chang,et al.  The effects of sustainable development on firms' financial performance – an empirical approach† , 2008 .

[28]  Shawn L. Berman,et al.  Does Stakeholder Orientation Matter? The Relationship Between Stakeholder Management Models and Firm Financial Performance , 1999 .

[29]  Peter A. Dacin,et al.  The Company and the Product: Corporate Associations and Consumer Product Responses , 1997 .

[30]  Mike W. Peng.  Identifying the big question in international business research , 2004 .

[31]  Minna Halme,et al.  Sustainability evaluation of European household services , 2006 .

[32]  William J. Doll,et al.  A Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the End-User Computing Satisfaction Instrument , 1994, MIS Q..

[33]  Eirik Nordheim,et al.  Sustainable development indicators of the European aluminium industry , 2007 .

[34]  Richard T. Watson,et al.  Information systems and ecological sustainability , 2008, J. Syst. Inf. Technol..

[35]  L. Phillips.  Assessing Measurement Error in Key Informant Reports: A Methodological Note on Organizational Analysis in Marketing , 1981 .

[36]  P. M. Podsakoff,et al.  Self-Reports in Organizational Research: Problems and Prospects , 1986 .

[37]  Rupert J. Baumgartner,et al.  Organizational culture and leadership: Preconditions for the development of a sustainable corporation , 2009 .

[38]  D. Wood.  Corporate Social Performance Revisited , 1991 .

[39]  Dewi Rooslani Tojib,et al.  User satisfaction with business-to-employee portals: conceptualization and scale development , 2008, Eur. J. Inf. Syst..

[40]  Duygu Turker.  Measuring Corporate Social Responsibility: A Scale Development Study , 2009 .

[41]  W. Davidson,et al.  Corporate Environmental Initiatives and Anticipated Firm Performance: The Differential Effects of Process-Driven Versus Product-Driven Greening Initiatives , 2000 .

[42]  A. S. Kunnathur,et al.  IS outsourcing management competence dimensions: instrument development and relationship exploration , 2005, Inf. Manag..

[43]  V. Ambrosini,et al.  Value Creation Versus Value Capture: Towards a Coherent Definition of Value in Strategy , 2000 .

[44]  C. Fornell,et al.  Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. , 1981 .

[45]  Patrick Y. K. Chau,et al.  Reexamining a Model for Evaluating Information Center Success Using a Structural Equation Modeling Approach , 1997 .

[46]  Peter M. Bentler,et al.  EQS : structural equations program manual , 1989 .

[47]  Holger Wallbaum,et al.  Accounting for the social dimension of sustainability: experiences from the biotechnology industry , 2006 .

[48]  D. Hussey,et al.  Global Reporting Initiative Guidelines: An Evaluation of Sustainable Development Metrics for Industry , 2001 .

[49]  Ricky Y. K. Chan,et al.  Does the Natural-Resource-Based View of the Firm Apply in an Emerging Economy? A Survey of Foreign Invested Enterprises in China , 2005 .

[50]  J. Aragón-Correa.  Strategic proactivity and firm approach to the natural environment , 1998 .

[51]  M. Cuthill,et al.  Strengthening the ‘social’ in sustainable development: Developing a conceptual framework for social sustainability in a rapid urban growth region in Australia , 2010 .

[52]  Yongqiang Gao,et al.  Corporate Social Performance in China: Evidence from Large Companies , 2009 .

[53]  J. Schumpeter,et al.  Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy , 1943 .

[54]  Paul Bowen,et al.  Sustainable construction: principles and a framework for attainment , 1997 .

[55]  S. Hart.  Beyond Greening: Strategies for a Sustainable World. , 1997 .

[56]  P. Shrivastava.  The Role of Corporations in Achieving Ecological Sustainability , 1995 .

[57]  Diana Farrell.  Offshoring: Value Creation Through Economic Change , 2005 .

[58]  Frank Birkin,et al.  New sustainable business models in China , 2009 .

[59]  Peter R. Mulvihill,et al.  Sustainability-focused Organizational Learning: Recent Experiences and New Challenges , 2003 .

[60]  W. S. Chow,et al.  Supply chain management in the US and Taiwan: An empirical study , 2008 .

[61]  M. Browne,et al.  Alternative Ways of Assessing Model Fit , 1992 .

[62]  Dicksen Tanzil,et al.  Assessing impacts: Overview on sustainability indicators and metrics , 2006 .

[63]  J. Alberto Aragón-Correa,et al.  The Contingent Influence of Organizational Capabilities on Proactive Environmental Strategy in the Service Sector: An Analysis of North American and European Ski Resorts , 2007 .

[64]  G. Zsidisin,et al.  Environmental purchasing: a framework for theory development , 2001 .

[65]  Ann Buchholtz,et al.  Business & Society Ethics and Stakeholder Management , 2006 .

[66]  Carol Prahinski,et al.  Empirical research opportunities in reverse supply chains , 2006 .

[67]  R. Baumgartner,et al.  Corporate sustainability strategies: sustainability profiles and maturity levels , 2010 .

[68]  P. Bentler,et al.  Significance Tests and Goodness of Fit in the Analysis of Covariance Structures , 1980 .

[69]  Wynne W. Chin.  Issues and Opinion on Structural Equation Modeling by , 2009 .

[70]  Sanjay Sharma,et al.  Proactive corporate environmental strategy and the development of competitively valuable organizational capabilities , 1998 .

[71]  D. Rondinelli,et al.  Proactive corporate environmental management: A new industrial revolution , 1998 .

[72]  Peter Jones,et al.  Retailers and sustainable development in the UK , 2005 .

[73]  Frank L. Montabon,et al.  An examination of corporate reporting, environmental management practices and firm performance , 2007 .

[74]  Kun-Min Zhang,et al.  Review and challenges of policies of environmental protection and sustainable development in China. , 2008, Journal of environmental management.

[75]  L. Steg,et al.  Customers' values, beliefs on sustainable corporate performance, and buying behavior , 2007 .

[76]  Kirk R. Karwan,et al.  An Empirical Examination of the Structural Dimensions of the Service Recovery System , 2009, Decis. Sci..

[77]  Lennart Olsson,et al.  Categorising tools for sustainability assessment , 2007 .

[78]  L. Preston,et al.  The Stakeholder Theory of the Corporation: Concepts, Evidence, and Implications , 1995 .

[79]  R. Bagozzi.  An Examination Of The Validity Of Two Models Of Attitude. , 1981, Multivariate behavioral research.

[80]  Nigel Melville,et al.  Information Systems Innovation for Environmental Sustainability , 2010, MIS Q..

[81]  Sanjay Sharma.  Managerial Interpretations and Organizational Context as Predictors of Corporate Choice of Environmental Strategy , 2000 .

[82]  Vijay Sethi,et al.  Development of measures to assess the extent to which an information technology application provides competitive advantage , 1994 .

[83]  Wynne W. Chin,et al.  Advancing the Theory of Adaptive Structuration: The Development of a Scale to Measure Faithfulness of Appropriation , 1997, Inf. Syst. Res..

[84]  A. Hillman,et al.  Shareholder value, stakeholder management, and social issues: what's the bottom line? , 2001 .

[85]  Sanjay Sharma,et al.  The Influence of Stakeholders on the Environmental Strategy of Service Firms: The Moderating Effects of Complexity, Uncertainty and Munificence , 2008 .

[86]  Gilbert A. Churchill.  A Paradigm for Developing Better Measures of Marketing Constructs , 1979 .

[87]  Petra Christmann.  Effects of “Best Practices” of Environmental Management on Cost Advantage: The Role of Complementary Assets , 2000 .

[88]  Irene Henriques,et al.  Stakeholder influences on sustainability practices in the Canadian forest products industry , 2005 .

[89]  Wynne W. Chin,et al.  On the use, usefulness, and ease of use of structural equation modeling in MIS research: a note of caution , 1995 .

[90]  Kendall Roth,et al.  Why Companies Go Green: A Model of Ecological Responsiveness , 2000 .

[91]  Grace K C Ding,et al.  Sustainable construction--the role of environmental assessment tools. , 2008, Journal of environmental management.

[92]  P. Bentler,et al.  Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis : Conventional criteria versus new alternatives , 1999 .

[93]  Edwin Mansfield,et al.  Social and Private Rates of Return from Industrial Innovations , 1977 .

[94]  A. Martinuzzi,et al.  Corporations, Stakeholders and Sustainable Development I: A Theoretical Exploration of Business–Society Relations , 2005 .

[95]  Sara Walton,et al.  The triple-bottom-line: benchmarking New Zealand’s early reporters , 2003 .

[96]  Audun Ruud,et al.  On the path to sustainability: integrating social dimensions into the research and practice of environmental management , 2003 .

[97]  María del Mar García de los Salmones,et al.  Influence of Corporate Social Responsibility on Loyalty and Valuation of Services , 2005 .

[98]  S. Banerjee,et al.  Corporate environmentalism : the construct and its measurement , 2002 .

[99]  G. Brundtland,et al.  Our Common Future (‘The Brundtland Report’): World Commission on Environment and Development , 2009 .

[100]  Stephen J. Fowler,et al.  Incorporating sustainable business practices into company strategy , 2007 .

[101]  Herbert W. Marsh,et al.  The Hierarchical Structure of Self-Concept and the Application of Hierarchical Confirmatory Factor Analysis , 1987 .

[102]  Margaret A. Peteraf.  The cornerstones of competitive advantage: A resource‐based view , 1993 .

[103]  Amy B. Henley,et al.  The Presence of Equivalent Models in Strategic Management Research Using Structural Equation Modeling , 2006 .

[104]  William R. King,et al.  Measuring the Performance of Information Systems: A Functional Scorecard , 2005, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[105]  Alan Forster,et al.  Measuring performance , 2010, Canadian Medical Association Journal.

[106]  D. Melé,et al.  Corporate Social Responsibility Theories: Mapping the Territory , 2004 .

[107]  José F. Molina-Azorín,et al.  The whole relationship between environmental variables and firm performance: competitive advantage and firm resources as mediator variables. , 2009, Journal of environmental management.

[108]  Adisa Azapagic,et al.  Developing a framework for sustainable development indicators for the mining and minerals Industry , 2004 .

[109]  R. MacCallum,et al.  Power analysis and determination of sample size for covariance structure modeling. , 1996 .

[110]  Anol Bhattacherjee,et al.  Individual Trust in Online Firms: Scale Development and Initial Test , 2002, J. Manag. Inf. Syst..

[111]  Feng-Yang Kuo,et al.  Development and Validation of Ethical Computer Self-Efficacy Measure: The Case of Softlifting , 2001 .

[112]  B. Muthén,et al.  Assessing Reliability and Stability in Panel Models , 1977 .

[113]  M. Victoria López,et al.  Sustainable Development and Corporate Performance: A Study Based on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index , 2007 .

[114]  Rolph E. Anderson,et al.  Multivariate Data Analysis (7th ed. , 2009 .

[115]  Lydia Kavanagh,et al.  Sustainability Indicators for Tourism Destinations: A Complex Adaptive Systems Approach Using Systemic Indicator Systems , 2008 .

[116]  T. Gladwin,et al.  Sustainability metrics for the business enterprise , 1999 .

[117]  B. Byrne.  Structural Equation Modeling with LISREL, PRELIS, and SIMPLIS: Basic Concepts, Applications, and Programming , 1998 .

[118]  A. Brent,et al.  Assessing the sustainability performances of industries , 2005 .