Factors and determinants of value- and business-driven sustainability initiatives in health care organizations: intrinsic differences and extrinsic similarities

The purpose of this paper is to compare the similarities and differences relating to sustainability initiatives between health-care organizations. The aim is to provide a framework of factors and their determinants to enable a profiling of organizational sustainability initiatives.

Based on an inductive approach, judgmental sampling was applied to select relevant health-care organizations. Informants were identified according to their knowledge of their organizations’ sustainability initiatives.

Several factors and their determinants for characterizing differences and similarities were found. The results also reveal that organizational sustainability initiatives are either value-driven or business-driven.

The reported framework of factors and their determinants serves the purpose of profiling organizational sustainability initiatives. Opportunities for further research are provided.

This paper provides managerial guidance for characterizing the differences and similarities with respect to organizational sustainability initiatives in relation to other organizations.

This study establishes a framework for characterizing organizational sustainability initiatives. It also contributes to reveal whether organizational sustainability initiatives are value – or business-driven and considers intrinsic-oriented differences and extrinsic-oriented similarities.