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Corporate Sustainability: Challenge to Managerial Orthodoxies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

Dexter Dunphy
Dexter Dunphy*
Affiliation:
Distinguished Professor, Corporate Sustainability Project, School of Management, Faculty of Business, University of Technology, SydneyPO Box 123, Broadway NSW 2007, Email: dexter.dunphy@uts.edu.au
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Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of corporate sustainability. It examines why achieving sustainability is becoming an increasingly vital issue for society and organisations, defines sustainability and then outlines a set of phases through which organisations can move to achieve increasing levels of sustainability. Case studies are presented of organisations at various phases indicating the benefits, for the organisation and its stakeholders, which can be made at each phase. Finally the paper argues that there is a marked contrast between the two competing philosophies of neo-conservatism (economic rationalism) and the emerging philosophy of sustainability. Management schools have been strongly influenced by economic rationalism, which underpins the traditional orthodoxies presented in such schools. Sustainability represents an urgent challenge for management schools to rethink these traditional orthodoxies and give sustainability a central place in the curriculum.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , January 2003 , pp. 2 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2003 

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