Ongoing Research Projects

Employees are one of the main stakeholder groups of each organization and are known to play an important role in corporate sustainability management (CSM). The employees’ engagement towards sustainability can go as far as they engage in employee initiatives, often termed green teams, communities of practice or more general, employee sustainability behavior. Some organizations have started to create space within the organizational structure for such teams to channel and foster their engagement for corporate sustainability. While there is some research on the intrinsic motivation and the organizational behavior of employees in those employee teams, the influence of the teams on the CSM beyond a psychological perspective remains ill-researched. Particularly empirical evidence building on organizational theories is lacking. We thus aim to contribute to a better understanding of the influence of such employee teams on CSM with a multi-case study in two ways. First, we take an inter-team perspective and analyze how the employee teams differ in their functions and responsibilities within the organizations. Second, we look at the employee teams as organizational actors and analyze how they contribute to CSM by taking an institutional work perspective. Our conceptual analysis indicates that employee teams can be categorized according to various characteristics.

Conference submission: NAMA Conference 2022 – Sustainability at the intersection of business and human rights 

Authors: Jennifer Adolph, Lena Ries, Katrin Schwarzfischer
Contact: Jennifer Adolph

With growing legal regulation on human rights obligations of multinational enterprises, the topic of human rights due diligence has gained more prominence. However, conflict-affected areas present complex institutional environments in which the implementation of measures to ensure the corporate respect for human rights is challenging. Especially, situations of military occupation or armed conflict in countries as Ukraine or the Democratic Republic of the Congo or non-conventional armed conflicts between organized groups such as in Mexico require an enhanced due diligence process as there is an increased risk for companies to be complicit in conflict-related human rights violations. This forces multinational enterprises to reconsider their business practices on how to ensure corporate respect for human rights in these institutional environments. Based on the Institutional Work perspective, we thus developed future scenarios on practices multinational enterprises may implement as part of their human rights strategy to address conflict-affected institutional environments. In a real-time Delphi study setting, 82 experts from business, civil society, and academia discussed which practices will be implemented by multinational enterprises until 2035 and whether they will have an impact on rightsholders.

Conference submission: NAMA Conference 2023 – Accelerating the Transition to Sustainability

Authors: Jennifer Adolph, Matthias Fertig, Janine Allenbacher (Universität Hamburg)
Contact: Jennifer Adolph

Sustainable innovations at all levels of the supply chain are necessary to make products and industry more efficient and sustainable in the long run. B2C companies are increasingly taking responsibility for their supply chain, putting innovation pressure on producers in the fields and pastures. In a qualitative study, we investigate how NGO cooperations can play an important role in this regard, in order to reconcile the company’s claim and the producers’ ability to innovate for an improved ecological footprint.
Persons involved: Markus Beckmann, Peter Wehnert, Laura Therese Heinl, Jennifer Adolph
Contact person: Laura Therese Heinl

The legitimacy of sustainability management stands and falls with the communication of sustainable activities. Little is known about the communication of sustainable activities within the company. We approach the topic area with qualitative studies (interviews, case studies) and holistic conceptual-literature-based projects.
Participating persons: Mirjam Memmel (MA), Elisabeth Heinz (MA), Laura Therese Heinl
Contact person: Laura Therese Heinl

Cooperations between companies and NGOs are becoming more and more frequent. Especially in the food sector, more and more NGOs and companies support each other in order to competently meet the ever new sustainability challenges. Many of these cooperations depend on the perception of the resulting products and brands. This is the starting point of our project in which quantitative studies and final theses address questions about brands, co-branding and consumer perceptions of sustainable products from NGO-corporate collaborations.
Persons involved: Markus Beckmann, Peter Wehnert, Anna Baatz, Laura Therese Heinl
Contact person: Laura Therese Heinl