Imagining what underlies corporate sustainability

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the range and depth of sustainability issues at their points of impact with company experience, and to pilot an illustration of how they could be imaginatively yet critically approached for management development purposes.

Design/methodology/approach

Citing and making sense of a variety of seminal or otherwise relevant sources in order to illustrate an imaginative yet critical approach to sustainability. This is a pilot demonstration to stimulate discussion and to help individuals develop their own sense making.

Findings

The need to allow space and time for reflection on the depth and breadth of sustainability approaches in order to enable personal understanding leading to wise action.

Research limitations/implications

This paper discusses planetary sustainability yet is confined to mainly Anglophone sources. Some of the latent environmental thought forms discussed, e.g. doom, may be largely restricted to them.

Practical implications

Divergent evaluations of trans-disciplinary, critical sustainability approaches are necessary for the longer-term development of motivation within companies.

Originality/value

This appears to be the first attempted trans-disciplinary yet critical business studies approach to sustainability at its points of impact with corporate operations. It aims to contribute to a new kind of management development path.

Citation

Ahern, G.M. (2015), "Imagining what underlies corporate sustainability", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 34 No. 4, pp. 494-504. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMD-06-2014-0064