Connecting Sustainability Organizational Models with SDGs

The Economy for the Common Good (ECG) movement started in 2010 with the publication of the first edition of the book "Gemeinwohl-Ökonomie" (Economy for the Common Good) by Christian Felber and the presentation of a first version of the common good balance sheet by a group of Austrian entrepreneurs. Currently, more than 2,000 companies, mainly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), are registered as supporters and more than 600 companies in Europe have already produced an ECG balance sheet. Thus, the movement spread from the German-speaking countries to other geographies, especially in Europe and Latin America.

The ECG can be considered as a new approach in line with several socioeconomic and political approaches that aim to frame the economic activity within ecological and social boundaries, thus contributing to work under a sustainable framework. Recently, a growing number of scholarly works focussed on the ECG both from conceptual and empirical perspectives.

In this line, the "II Economy for the Common Good International Conference 2022", under the slogan «Connecting Sustainability Organizational Models with SDGs» aimed at bringing together those scholars working on topics related to the ECG and other sustainability approaches. It provided a platform for a critical review, a resonance space, and a platform for networking. To do so, the conference included 8 tracks, namely: (1) Principles, Antecedents, Methodologies and Foundations of ECG; (2) Embedding Sustainability into Strategic Management Processes; (3) Sustainable Human Resource Mamangement; (4) Sustainability Strategies; (5) Sustainability and SDGs in Higher Education; (6) Sustainability and SDGs, Impact Measurement and Non-Financial Reporting in SMEs; (7) The Political Relevance of Alternative Sustainability Frameworks; and (8) Sustainability, AI, Digitalitation and Innovation.

As a result, the present book comprises the main works, based on the received submissions, presented during the II ECGIC 2022 held in March 2022 at the University of Valencia. Thus, this scientific book allows analyzing several topics such as sustainable development, corporate sustainability, social responsibility, and SDGs. Therefore, being of great interest to both academia and practitioners related to sustainability and corporate social responsibility fields.

In this sense, the scientific works have been divided into 10 chapters. Hence, each chapter deeper analyzes the conference's main topic. Thus, focusing on the study of the social dimension of sustainability from the human resource management point of view, several studies analyze its influence on social performance, as well as its consideration when applying quality management principles and practices as a driver to the social dimension of the organization since these practices could lead to the development of a sustainable orientation. Additionally, it is also important to analyze how work-family conflict and professional stress among financial workers and their relationships levers to burnout syndrome.  Another key point is the role of women in the economy as the performance of organizations has a great deal with gender diversity from its triple dimension (economic, social, and environmental). Moreover, based on the concept of Gender Equality presented in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals,  the gender-role perspective is strictly related to the ECG.

Likewise, from a more holistic point of view, it is important to take into consideration those organizations that care about the socio-economic sector in which they operate. As a result, concepts such as Sustainability or Sustainable development, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or Corporate Social Performance (CSP), have emerged to help firms to improve the way they relate with their stakeholders, thus allowing them at performing both literature review and quantitative analysis. As a matter of fact, the Life Cycle Management (LCM) tools to analyze the sustainability of olive groves in the Alentejo region of Portugal are discussed among these chapters since sustainability assessment regarding the economic, social and environmental pillars can support decision-making processes.

Under those circumstances, fostering more accountable, democratic, and effective sustainability actions and outcomes is essential. This way organizations assess and report on their non-financial performance by means of ethical, social, and environmental accounting. However, it is also important to be aware that the complexity of the method landscape can hinder the method selection process.

The ECG encompasses the mentioned topics above through a holistic integration into the business strategy. Thus, some works focus on the understanding of common good economics. To do so, a specific chapter delivers an innovative way to not only normatively prescribe preferences for the common good but also to investigate them empirically. In like manner, the ECG facilitates the SDGs integration into the core business. So, it allows analyzing the integration of SDGs into supply chain management. As a result, the management of the firms’ supply chains using the Common Good Matrix will produce positive social impacts along with positive environmental impacts. By doing so, firms will strengthen their competitive advantage in terms of differentiation.

Finally, we would like to recognize and thank all the support and funding received from Conselleria d’Economia Sostenible, Caixa Popular, and Universitat de València, the faculty of Economics, in making this book a reality.