Enterprises’ sustainability orientation: A natural language processing approach
type: CreativeWork
description: Sustainability in business is widely viewed as a strategic orientation decision. However, comparatively, little is known about assessing sustainability orientation and its drivers and implications for enterprises. This thesis examines sustainability orientation from a diverse perspective and focuses on sustainability orientation using corporate narratives. Specifically, this thesis harnesses the power of natural language processing (NLP) techniques, which is a field of artificial intelligence (AI), as a tool for research in extracting insights from textual communication. The thesis comprises three studies along with a cohesive synthesis of their implications. First, I begin by drawing on the vast literature on corporate social sustainability (CSR) to explore contextual factors that drive enterprises' behaviour towards sustainability. Specifically, the results illustrate that CSR practices are associated with external constituents' scrutiny levels. It is strongly related to political factors and social visibility and partially to media exposure. In addition, the study provides evidence to illustrate that positive influences on CSR practices may have been short-lived when a longer time horizon is considered. Second, by exploring small and middle-sized enterprises (SMEs), I elucidated the implications of a communicated sustainability orientation strategy on enterprises' economic performance. I used the communication of social values as a signal of sustainability orientation and explored its impacts, also considering social actions as an additional signal of sustainability orientation. The findings suggest that the effect of communicating social values on economic performance varies between social enterprises and traditional commercial enterprises. Unlike traditional commercial enterprises, social enterprises do not achieve economic performance advantages by communicating social values. Instead, it is the social actions of social enterprises that positively influence ec…
abstract: Sustainability in business is widely viewed as a strategic orientation decision. However, comparatively, little is known about assessing sustainability orientation and its drivers and implications for enterprises. This thesis examines sustainability orientation from a diverse perspective and focuses on sustainability orientation using corporate narratives. Specifically, this thesis harnesses the power of natural language processing (NLP) techniques, which is a field of artificial intelligence (AI), as a tool for research in extracting insights from textual communication. The thesis comprises three studies along with a cohesive synthesis of their implications. First, I begin by drawing on the vast literature on corporate social sustainability (CSR) to explore contextual factors that drive enterprises' behaviour towards sustainability. Specifically, the results illustrate that CSR practices are associated with external constituents' scrutiny levels. It is strongly related to political factors and social visibility and partially to media exposure. In addition, the study provides evidence to illustrate that positive influences on CSR practices may have been short-lived when a longer time horizon is considered. Second, by exploring small and middle-sized enterprises (SMEs), I elucidated the implications of a communicated sustainability orientation strategy on enterprises' economic performance. I used the communication of social values as a signal of sustainability orientation and explored its impacts, also considering social actions as an additional signal of sustainability orientation. The findings suggest that the effect of communicating social values on economic performance varies between social enterprises and traditional commercial enterprises. Unlike traditional commercial enterprises, social enterprises do not achieve economic performance advantages by communicating social values. Instead, it is the social actions of social enterprises that positively influence ec…
author: Culpi Mann, Evelize
keywords: sustainability orientation, social enterprises, economic performance, natural language processing
license: https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstreams/b9882343-24d8-481d-86e1-114abc343e7f/download
date published: 2024
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:57:33Z
provider: University Waikato
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The University of Waikato