What to say and what to do: the disparity of the communication and investment in sustainability targets, given customer expectations

Hans Ulrich Buhl, Valerie Graf-Drasch and Christian Wiethe ()
Additional contact information
Hans Ulrich Buhl: FIM Research Center
Valerie Graf-Drasch: FIM Research Center
Christian Wiethe: Branch Business and Information Systems Engineering of the Fraunhofer FIT

Journal of Business Economics, 2023, vol. 93, issue 3, No 5, 485-507

Abstract: Abstract Companies have many opportunities to engage in sustainable development. However, since transformations toward sustainability represent strategic shifts, such transformations should be undertaken with care. Companies might begin by translating particular sustainability targets into economically relevant advantages. Yet, appropriate decision support regarding how much to invest and which goals to communicate to customers is missing. Against this backdrop, we develop a formal mathematical decision model that helps companies simultaneously determine optimal levels of sustainability investment and public communication. Optimal sustainability solutions will balance customer expectations with a company’s financial investments. The feasibility and added value of our model are evaluated via prototypical instantiations at a German beverage company. Applicability and extensions of the model are discussed.

Keywords: Sustainability targets; Sustainability reporting; Customer satisfaction; Kano model; Optimization model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C61 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11573-022-01115-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:jbecon:v:93:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s11573-022-01115-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/11573

DOI: 10.1007/s11573-022-01115-7

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Economics is currently edited by Günter Fandel

More articles in Journal of Business Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().