TY - JOUR

T1 - Contingency in business sustainability research and in the sustainability service industry

T2 - A problematization and research agenda

AU - Imbrogiano, Jean-Pierre

N1 - Funding Information: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4597-9940 Imbrogiano Jean-Pierre 1 1 The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia Jean-Pierre Imbrogiano, Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, 47A Staff House Road, St. Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia. Email: j.imbrogiano@uq.edu.au 1 2020 1086026619897532 © The Author(s) 2020 2020 SAGE Publications A sustainability service industry has emerged that promotes the adoption of management tools, mechanisms, and procedures. This emergence took place despite a knowledge gap of how sustainability performance occurs in businesses. To understand practices amid the knowledge gap, this article explores through problematization how the performance orientations of practitioners and researchers relate to each other in the business sustainability field. The article unearths that like the sustainability service industry in practice, scholarship implicitly accepts assumptions of contingency in research designs. Because these implicit assumptions are unattended, it seems, to date, not possible for researchers to provide evidence-based guidance to practitioners on how to address business unsustainability. In addition, basic concepts of contingency are not yet established in this field to explain performance, rendering the acceptance of corresponding assumptions unfounded. The article concludes with research suggestions for the development of theory of sustainability performance in businesses. sustainability performance sustainability service industry contingency theory problematization field assumptions edited-state corrected-proof typesetter ts1 Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was financially supported by The University of Queensland and by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). ORCID iD Jean-Pierre Imbrogiano https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4597-9940 Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2020.

PY - 2021/6

Y1 - 2021/6

N2 - A sustainability service industry has emerged that promotes the adoption of management tools, mechanisms, and procedures. This emergence took place despite a knowledge gap of how sustainability performance occurs in businesses. To understand practices amid the knowledge gap, this article explores through problematization how the performance orientations of practitioners and researchers relate to each other in the business sustainability field. The article unearths that like the sustainability service industry in practice, scholarship implicitly accepts assumptions of contingency in research designs. Because these implicit assumptions are unattended, it seems, to date, not possible for researchers to provide evidence-based guidance to practitioners on how to address business unsustainability. In addition, basic concepts of contingency are not yet established in this field to explain performance, rendering the acceptance of corresponding assumptions unfounded. The article concludes with research suggestions for the development of theory of sustainability performance in businesses.

AB - A sustainability service industry has emerged that promotes the adoption of management tools, mechanisms, and procedures. This emergence took place despite a knowledge gap of how sustainability performance occurs in businesses. To understand practices amid the knowledge gap, this article explores through problematization how the performance orientations of practitioners and researchers relate to each other in the business sustainability field. The article unearths that like the sustainability service industry in practice, scholarship implicitly accepts assumptions of contingency in research designs. Because these implicit assumptions are unattended, it seems, to date, not possible for researchers to provide evidence-based guidance to practitioners on how to address business unsustainability. In addition, basic concepts of contingency are not yet established in this field to explain performance, rendering the acceptance of corresponding assumptions unfounded. The article concludes with research suggestions for the development of theory of sustainability performance in businesses.

KW - contingency theory

KW - field assumptions

KW - problematization

KW - sustainability performance

KW - sustainability service industry

KW - Sustainability Governance

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85077357924&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/1086026619897532

DO - 10.1177/1086026619897532

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 34

SP - 298

EP - 322

JO - Organization & Environment

JF - Organization & Environment

SN - 1086-0266

IS - 2

ER -