Luo Ben Nanfeng, Tang Ying, Chen Erica Wen, Li Shiqi, Luo Dongying
School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.
Front Psychol. 2020 Nov 20;11:579272. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.579272. eCollection 2020.
Increasing evidence suggests that corporate sustainability is paradoxical in nature, as corporates and managers have to achieve economic, social, and environmental goals, simultaneously. While a paradox perspective has been broadly incorporated into sustainability research for more than a decade, it has resulted in limited improvement in our understanding of corporate sustainability paradox management. In this study, the authors conduct a systematic review of the literature of corporate sustainability paradox management by adopting the Smith-Lewis three-stage model of dynamic equilibrium. The results reveal the following: (1) Both environmental and cognitive factors manifest tensions arising from the sustainability paradox. (2) While both proactive and defensive strategies are adopted to manage the tensions embedded in the corporate sustainability, the proactive strategy is more extensively studied in the current literature. (3) Management strategies of corporate sustainability paradox are characterized as multi-level, multi-stage, and dealing with multiple paradoxes. (4) Proactive strategies enable organizations to enjoy short-term and long-term sustainability benefits. The authors call for further research explicitly addressing the following areas: (1) the paradoxical nature of corporate sustainability management; (2) corporate sustainability paradox management of for-profit organizations; (3) the micro-foundations of corporate sustainability paradox management; (4) defensive strategies and new proactive strategies; and (5) a unified standard of sustainability outcomes. The practical implications of this review are then elaborated. In practice, the results imply that organizations would best manage the corporate sustainability paradox by understanding the paradox and its equilibrium stages. This review and proposed research agenda are expected to deepen interdisciplinary knowledge and set the stage for interested scholars to undertake in their future inquiries.
越来越多的证据表明，企业可持续发展在本质上是自相矛盾的，因为企业和管理者必须同时实现经济、社会和环境目标。虽然矛盾视角已被广泛纳入可持续发展研究十多年，但在我们对企业可持续发展矛盾管理的理解方面，其带来的改善有限。在本研究中，作者采用史密斯 - 刘易斯动态平衡三阶段模型，对企业可持续发展矛盾管理的文献进行了系统综述。结果显示如下：（1）环境因素和认知因素都表现出可持续发展矛盾所产生的紧张关系。（2）虽然在管理企业可持续发展中所蕴含的紧张关系时，既采用了积极策略也采用了防御策略，但当前文献中对积极策略的研究更为广泛。（3）企业可持续发展矛盾的管理策略具有多层次、多阶段以及应对多重矛盾的特点。（4）积极策略使组织能够享有短期和长期的可持续发展效益。作者呼吁进一步开展研究，明确关注以下领域：（1）企业可持续发展管理的矛盾本质；（2）营利性组织的企业可持续发展矛盾管理；（3）企业可持续发展矛盾管理的微观基础；（4）防御策略和新的积极策略；以及（5）可持续发展成果的统一标准。随后阐述了本综述的实际意义。在实践中，结果表明组织若要最好地管理企业可持续发展矛盾，需理解该矛盾及其平衡阶段。本综述及所提出的研究议程有望加深跨学科知识，并为感兴趣的学者在未来的研究中奠定基础。
