The Nature of the Relationship Between Corporate Identity and Corporate Sustainability: Evidence from The Retail Industry

Cláudia Simões and Roberta Sebastiani

Business Ethics Quarterly, 2017, vol. 27, issue 3, 423-453

Abstract: This article addresses the nature of the interface between corporate sustainability and corporate identity at both the strategic and instrumental levels. We developed an empirical qualitative study in two countries in Southern Europe addressing retailers who are actively engaged in pursuing corporate-sustainability strategies. Data sources include in-depth interviews, observations, and physical artifacts of identity (digital and printed documents). Findings reveal that, at a strategic level, corporate sustainability is embedded in corporate identity reflecting the company’s strategy. Companies also instrumentally use corporate identity to operationalize corporate sustainability strategies. Organizations show different patterns in the way they bridge corporate sustainability and identity. The contributions of this article are threefold: it reports the symbiotic relationship between corporate sustainability and corporate identity; it scrutinizes how corporate sustainability and corporate identity are integrated at the strategic and operational levels; and it establishes distinct patterns at the interface of corporate sustainability and corporate identity.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:buetqu:v:27:y:2017:i:03:p:423-453_00

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Business Ethics Quarterly from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().