In Sustainable Governance in Hybrid Organizations the author Linne Marie Lauesen explores how businesses that have succeeded in conducting sustainable governance, manage and govern their sustainable performance: in other words, how they manage to be economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable. In this respect, hybrid organizations that are formed as businesses with a mission to be sustainable and to provide services for society - such as water companies - are a good point of departure. Water companies are highly regulated whilst working primarily for the betterment of society and on behalf of generations to come, for whom clean and plentiful water and the preservation of nature is a must. Linne Marie has dug deep into these types of hybrid organizations in order to reveal which mechanisms of organizational governance for sustainability are at play, and how these organizations manage to balance their triple bottom lines in order to survive financially, socially, and environmentally and make a business out of their conduct. Balancing these three bottom lines in a sustainable way is explained in a clear and accessible way and the juxtaposition between non-profit and for-profit water companies will show how this model can be transferred to other business spheres.

This book aims to develop the theme of non-financial reporting and the necessity of pursuing sustainable development with particular reference to Benefit Corporations and Certified B Corps. The research offers a systematic and exploratory analysis, with the goal of developing a conceptual framework for supporting companies in the achievement of sustainable governance in line with the United Nations’ guidelines for sustainable development. The first chapter reviews the relevant literature and analyzes the concept of sustainable development, focusing on the United Nations’ policies and SDGs. Chapter 2 reviews the relevant literature on corporate social responsibility, describing its evolution from its birth during the Industrial Revolution through to the present day. Chapter 3 focuses on non-financial reporting and emphasizes the need to establish effective social communication with stakeholders that includes environmental, social, and governance (ESG) aspects. Chapter 4 explores the value of Benefit Corporations and Certified B Corps, which are companies that have adopted an innovative business model that combines the need for both corporate social responsibility and profitability. Finally, the last chapter uses examples of Italian fashion B Corps to illustrate how such companies make decisions based on CSR.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Sustainable Governance in Northeast Asia: Challenges for Innovation Frontier" that was published in Sustainability

What can be done to ensure natural resources aren't exploited? Is it possible to determine how to sustainably manage them? What makes some systems successful? In Sustainable Governance of Natural Resources, Ulrich Frey delves deep into unanswered questions like these about resource management. The book explains the current state of biological cooperation mechanisms, case studies in the field, findings from economic-behavioral experiments, common-pool resource dilemmas, and how these are all relevant to these questions surrounding the best way to sustainably manage natural resources. There are many case studies within the field of social-ecological systems, but there are few large-N studies conducted in a methodologically rigorous manner. Frey does just this and takes readers step-by-step through the preparation of datasets like the CPR, NIIS, and IFRI. He also grounds his research through the development of an indicator system which operationalizes 24 individually-synthesized success factors that influence the management of natural resources. The book reveals the practical and operational uses of measuring ecological success in this way, showcasing various statistical and machine learning methods to develop highly predictive, robust, and empirically-sound models. Three different methods, multivariate linear regressions, random forests, and artificial neural networks are compared to achieve robust results. The book sheds new light on factors that have previously been investigated, allowing readers to build off of Frey's system and use his methods to determine whether or not their way of managing natural resources will yield ecological success in practice.

Sustainable Self-Governance in Businesses and Society offers a sound introduction to Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM) and clarifies its relevance to support organisational sustainability and self-governance. While the VSM has been known since the early 1980s, it hasn’t been always easy to understand and to apply. It explains the self-transformation methodology to analyse the way organisations manage (or not) their complexity and govern themselves. The work is supported by multiple examples of application in organisations of all scales – from small to multi-national corporations and from organised social networks to communities and national organisations. It clarifies the relevance of Beer’s theory to support systemic learning and change in organisations, and to coach them to self-organise and self-govern. Readers interested in further understanding insights from complex systems and cybernetics theories for designing and transforming organisations will benefit from this book, as it works to offer very detailed insights on how to put the VSM theory into practice. It clarifies how it improves adaptive capabilities, agile and self-regulated structures, more capable of fully implementing corporate sustainability strategies and self-governing themselves. The chapters provide key reading for managers, consultants, practitioners, and post-graduate students working in organisational transformation, governance, and sustainability.

"Despite the limiting effects of growing interdependencies in a globalized world, national governments still have a considerably broad scope of action when it comes to ensuring sustainable policy outcomes. The key question is, however, to what extent governments can identify, formulate and implement effective reforms that render a society well-equipped to meet future challenges. The goal of the 'Sustainable Governance Indicators 2009' (SGI) project is to answer this question for all 30 member states of the OECD. The composite indicators used to systematically measure the need for reform and the capacity for reform in these countries will be updated biennially. The vast set of quantitative and qualitative data collected and analyzed by a network of more than 100 renowned international experts provides an unprecedented opportunity for cross-national comparative studies. This publication of the inaugural edition of the SGI includes essays on the key findings, methodology and on issues related to reform, such as the state of social justice in the OECD."--Back cover.

Companies can no longer expect to engage in dubious or unethical corporate behaviour without risking their reputation and damaging, perhaps irrevocably, their market position. Irresponsible corporate behavior not only deprives shareholders of long-term returns but also ultimately imposes a cost on society as a whole. Sustainable business is about ensuring that entities contribute toward positive social, environmental, and economic outcomes. Bad business behaviour is costly for stakeholders, for markets, for society, and the economy alike. To ensure that a company behaves well, the buy-in of the leadership team is crucial. The full commitment of the board of directors, in conjunction with the senior managers of the organization, is required if an organization is to be socially responsible. In this sense, leadership does not reside with an individual (the CEO) within the organization but with all of those at the apex of corporate power and control. Effective change management requires enlightened and capable leadership to instigate and drive the process of embedding a sustainable and socially responsible corporate philosophy and culture that supports good business decision-making. A profound understanding of the requirements of such a leadership process will help corporate managers become highly effective change agents. Governance will be the main driver of this change. For the economy and financial markets to become sustainable and resilient, radical changes in corporate leadership need to take place. Integrated reporting, government regulation, and international standards will all be important factors in bringing about this change. As well as understanding the effects of corporate behavior on financial markets, such an understanding is also now imperative in relation to the social and environmental contexts.

The authors assert that sustainability is not a defined end-state, but should be understood as the capacity of society to learn about the conditions of its future existence. This requires a specific kind of problem solving framework which emphasises the interlinkage of problems and scales.

This publication examines the traditional methods of post conflict reconstruction and combines them with conflict sensitive awareness and new strategies to come up with innovative ways of creating legitimate, functioning governance and public administration institutions that will maintain an enduring peace. The insights and recommendations of this publication are useful in improving the policies and practices of post-conflict governance reconstruction so that communities emerging from violent conflict can reach their potential.