Evaluating sustainability in organisations with a fuzzy logic approach

Abstract

Purpose

The aim is to determine whether the organisations more strategically committed to their stakeholders present better social and financial performance and, based on this relationship, to determine the state of the art of the Spanish sectors' approach to sustainable development.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper analyses the sustainability approach of a sample of 52 Spanish listed firms. This process is based on the study of different indexes generated in order to evaluate the company's commitment through its stakeholders, the social and financial performance of these organisations, and the relationship between them. Previous results showed a positive and not significant relationship between these variables and a positive financial performance. This paper replicates a former research by introducing a fuzzy‐ logic‐based methodology in order to generate the aforementioned indexes.

Findings

The current results support the conclusions formerly obtained and simultaneously demonstrate that big Spanish companies are at an incipient stage of development of a clearly sustainability‐oriented management.

Research limitations/implications

The unavailability of a long series of organisations' sustainability information is an obstacle for a broader analysis. This research could motivate the usefulness of the fuzzy logic methodology for analysing the business sustainability approach and to develop studies on the corporate social performance.

Originality/value

The use of fuzzy logic methodology for the generation of indexes related to the organisation's social responsibility and sustainability results.

Citation

Muñoz, M.J., Rivera, J.M. and Moneva, J.M. (2008), "Evaluating sustainability in organisations with a fuzzy logic approach", Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 108 No. 6, pp. 829-841. https://doi.org/10.1108/02635570810884030