In a first step, this chapter provides a brief review of the existing literature on the international state of the art of sustainability management. The review reveals that while a large body of studies already exists, most publications deal with single nations or bilateral comparisons. Among the truly international studies, a lack of comparative quantitative inquiries on a country-specific level is identified.

In a second step, the edited volume’s methodological approach to address this research gap is outlined. Unlike prior studies on sustainability management, the ICSB builds on a comprehensive survey among sustainability managers in large companies and is not restricted to single aspects of sustainability management. This chapter describes the process of data collection and provides the reader with the most important information on the resulting sample which includes 468 companies of 11 economically developed countries from 4 distinct world regions.