Abstract

Scientific research demonstrates that humanity is steadily bringing Earth to the limits of its planetary boundaries. Businesses, as powerful economic and social agents, have increasingly undertaken environmental strategies into their activities. Yet, even while firms increase their statements around sustainability, the concepts behind their actions – sustainable development, resilience, environmentalism, corporate social responsibility, and others - have not always been clear. These concepts have been changing over time since the 1980s, and even today there is no general agreement on their meaning neither among the scientists nor among the business practitioners. Moreover, even within a single firm, these terms may not be understood and interpreted the same way throughout an organization.

This problem brings to the main research question of this study which is to analyze how sustainability is understood, interpreted and integrated into a strategy of TNCs. I use a single case study to explore it on an example of a transnational corporation (TNC) in the automotive industry. In particular, I explore the external perspective of the firm through official public documents (annual reports, press releases) and internal perspective through interviews with managers within the TNC based in a European country. In this research, I find a gap between public documents and interviews; a gap between managers’ understanding of the importance of sustainability societally and their integration of meaningful sustainability-oriented actions into their day-to-day actions in the company; a gap between the purported value of sustainability as part of the firm’s strategy and its implementation.