CEOs’ talk of sustainability: Towards an inclusion of an embeddedness and value-creation perspective
(2019) In LSR Working Papers Series- Abstract
- Purpose: This paper sets out to examine how CEOs’ talk of sustainability has developed in a period of increased expectations from society for companies to step up their transformation towards more sustainable businesses andbetter account for their progress and performance within the sustainability area.
Design/methodology/approach: By adopting an interpretive textual approach, this paper provides a careful analysis of how CEO talk of sustainability has developed in the largest listed Swedish companies during the period 2008-2017. The analysis focuses on the CEO letter.
Findings: TheCEOs’ talk of sustainability is becoming much more elaborated, proactive and also adopts a multi-dimensional approach towards... (More) - Purpose: This paper sets out to examine how CEOs’ talk of sustainability has developed in a period of increased expectations from society for companies to step up their transformation towards more sustainable businesses andbetter account for their progress and performance within the sustainability area.
Design/methodology/approach: By adopting an interpretive textual approach, this paper provides a careful analysis of how CEO talk of sustainability has developed in the largest listed Swedish companies during the period 2008-2017. The analysis focuses on the CEO letter.
Findings: TheCEOs’ talk of sustainability is becoming much more elaborated, proactive and also adopts a multi-dimensional approach towards sustainability. The CEOs frame their talk by adopting different perspectives over the period; the sticky environmental-, the performance and meso-, the product-market oriented-and the embeddedness and value-creation perspective.The most intriguing finding is that of a radical change in the CEOs’ talk of sustainability in the latest lettersindicating that the alleged capitalistic and short-sighted focus on value maximization and profitability might be changing for embedding more of sustainability dimensions.
Practical implications: The findings provide relevant inputs to the debate on how CEOs provide accountability to their stakeholders by framing their talk of sustainability from different perspectives.
Originality/value:This comprehensive analysis of how CEOs in the largest listed companies through their talk of sustainability provide accountability to their stakeholders, offers a unique frame of reference for further interpretational work on how CEOs frame, engage in andshape the sustainability discourse. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/5eeebaa4-d537-4907-9004-d1f35672a0b7
- author
- Arvidsson, Susanne LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2019-12
- type
- Working paper/Preprint
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- CEO talk, Sustainability, CEO letters, Accountability, Organisational (managerial) attention, Corporate response, Q01, M14, M41
- in
- LSR Working Papers Series
- issue
- 2019:02
- pages
- 36 pages
- project
- Sustainable Future Hub
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 5eeebaa4-d537-4907-9004-d1f35672a0b7
- alternative location
- https://www.lusem.lu.se/media/ehl/SFH/LSRWPS0219.pdf
- date added to LUP
- 2020-02-07 14:08:06
- date last changed
- 2023-01-19 12:02:55
@misc{5eeebaa4-d537-4907-9004-d1f35672a0b7,
abstract = {{Purpose: This paper sets out to examine how CEOs’ talk of sustainability has developed in a period of increased expectations from society for companies to step up their transformation towards more sustainable businesses andbetter account for their progress and performance within the sustainability area.<br/><br/>Design/methodology/approach: By adopting an interpretive textual approach, this paper provides a careful analysis of how CEO talk of sustainability has developed in the largest listed Swedish companies during the period 2008-2017. The analysis focuses on the CEO letter.<br/><br/>Findings: TheCEOs’ talk of sustainability is becoming much more elaborated, proactive and also adopts a multi-dimensional approach towards sustainability. The CEOs frame their talk by adopting different perspectives over the period; the sticky environmental-, the performance and meso-, the product-market oriented-and the embeddedness and value-creation perspective.The most intriguing finding is that of a radical change in the CEOs’ talk of sustainability in the latest lettersindicating that the alleged capitalistic and short-sighted focus on value maximization and profitability might be changing for embedding more of sustainability dimensions. <br/><br/>Practical implications: The findings provide relevant inputs to the debate on how CEOs provide accountability to their stakeholders by framing their talk of sustainability from different perspectives. <br/><br/>Originality/value:This comprehensive analysis of how CEOs in the largest listed companies through their talk of sustainability provide accountability to their stakeholders, offers a unique frame of reference for further interpretational work on how CEOs frame, engage in andshape the sustainability discourse.}},
author = {{Arvidsson, Susanne}},
keywords = {{CEO talk; Sustainability; CEO letters; Accountability; Organisational (managerial) attention; Corporate response; Q01; M14; M41}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Working Paper}},
number = {{2019:02}},
series = {{LSR Working Papers Series}},
title = {{CEOs’ talk of sustainability: Towards an inclusion of an embeddedness and value-creation perspective}},
url = {{https://www.lusem.lu.se/media/ehl/SFH/LSRWPS0219.pdf}},
year = {{2019}},
}