Social Sustainability in Business Organizations: A Research Agenda

Merlina Missimer and Patricia Lagun Mesquita
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Merlina Missimer: Department of Strategic Sustainable Development, Blekinge Institute of Technology, 371 41 Karlskrona, Sweden
Patricia Lagun Mesquita: Department of Strategic Sustainable Development, Blekinge Institute of Technology, 371 41 Karlskrona, Sweden

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 5, 1-13

Abstract: Since the economic crisis in 2008, the world has seen a partly negative shift in social progress, highlighting that current economic models and practices do not guarantee long-lasting societal and human wellbeing. Economic models and business practices are deeply intertwined; thus, businesses play a major role in the advancement of social sustainability, and academic research can offer support in navigating the complexity of this issue. However, social sustainability tends to be under-researched. This article summarizes the discussion in general business management, product development, and supply-chain management, and from this suggest a research agenda to help in guiding systematic change in business organizations towards social sustainability. The article identifies ten main challenges and offers five recommendations to move the field forward, namely, a more explicit engagement with and discussion of social systems-science based ideas, and a more explicit determination as a field to converge on key pieces leading towards a clearer definition of the concept. Lastly, it recommends that research needs to focus on how to overcome fragmented organizational structures, how to achieve true integration into existing processes and tools, and how to support organizations to become more dynamic in working with these issues.

Keywords: social sustainability; strategic sustainable development; research agenda; business; systems approaches (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 (3)

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