TY - JOUR

T1 - Transdisciplinarity in Corporate Sustainability

T2 - Mapping the Field

AU - Schaltegger, Stefan

AU - Beckmann, Markus

AU - Hansen, Erik G.

PY - 2013/5

Y1 - 2013/5

N2 - Sustainability challenges are complex. So are the challenges that business firms encounter in their corresponding quest for corporate sustainability. Given this complexity, there is a need for new approaches to corporate sustainability management research. We discuss transdisciplinarity as such a novel approach in three steps. After showing that specialization is the primary conventional response to increasing complexity, we first briefly compare how inter‐, multi‐ and transdisciplinarity reintegrate decentralized, specialized knowledge. The second step describes how the emerging sustainability science has recently advanced the transdisciplinary methodology. Based on the two dimensions of interdisciplinarity and academia–practice collaboration, we third generate a framework for mapping existing research approaches in terms of their transdisciplinary qualities. We use this framework to identify room for novel methodologies in sustainability management research. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

AB - Sustainability challenges are complex. So are the challenges that business firms encounter in their corresponding quest for corporate sustainability. Given this complexity, there is a need for new approaches to corporate sustainability management research. We discuss transdisciplinarity as such a novel approach in three steps. After showing that specialization is the primary conventional response to increasing complexity, we first briefly compare how inter‐, multi‐ and transdisciplinarity reintegrate decentralized, specialized knowledge. The second step describes how the emerging sustainability science has recently advanced the transdisciplinary methodology. Based on the two dimensions of interdisciplinarity and academia–practice collaboration, we third generate a framework for mapping existing research approaches in terms of their transdisciplinary qualities. We use this framework to identify room for novel methodologies in sustainability management research. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics

KW - transdisciplinarity

KW - sustainability science

KW - corporate sustainability

KW - Entrepreneurship

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84878173699&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/bse.1772

DO - 10.1002/bse.1772

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 22

SP - 219

EP - 229

JO - Business Strategy and the Environment

JF - Business Strategy and the Environment

SN - 0964-4733

IS - 4

ER -