Sustainability (Is Not) in the Boardroom: Evidence and Implications of Attentional Voids

Daina Mazutis, Katherine Hanly and Anna Eckardt
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Daina Mazutis: Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada
Katherine Hanly: Department of Geography, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada
Anna Eckardt: My Learning Boutique, 1012 Lausanne, Switzerland

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 14, 1-17

Abstract: Strategic leadership and corporate governance scholars have long been interested in how boards of directors make decisions pertaining to important strategic issues that can have a material impact on their organizations. To date, however, research on board decision-making, especially as it relates to issues of corporate social responsibility (CSR), environmental management, or sustainability, has concentrated almost exclusively on structural, demographic, or ownership factors of boards and their impact on various aspects of corporate social or environmental performance. Even still, many reputable corporations with exemplary corporate governance structures continue to make questionable strategic decisions with regards to environmental sustainability. As such, this research seeks to look into the “black box” of corporate governance to understand exactly how boards of directors are dealing (or not) with issues related to environmental sustainability. To do so, we conducted a series of qualitative interviews with directors and were surprised to find that social and environmental sustainability was simply not debated in the boardroom. Using an attention-based view of the firms (ABV), we present a process-based model that explains this phenomenon and introduce the new construct of attentional voids so as to contribute to our understanding of governing for social and environmental sustainability.

Keywords: boards; corporate governance; corporate social responsibility; environmental sustainability; ABV (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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