Enabling an Intrinsic Perspective Towards Approaching Tensions in CS Decisions Through Moral Imagination: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Business and society have been known to be interlinked by a thread called sustainability. However, over the years, this thread has lost its strength because of the dominance of an instrumental perspective towards corporate sustainability (CS). Literature shows that there are innumerable tensions around CS decisions and propose several reasons why decision-makers predominantly resort to the instrumental perspective (CS as a mean) rather than the intrinsic perspective (CS as an end) when addressing these tensions. In this chapter, the authors offer a novel solution to overcome this issue by adapting the existing definition of moral imagination (MI) from the business ethics domain to the CS domain with the help of climate science literacy and mental models of climate phenomena. The authors posit that practicing this adapted MI can facilitate decision-makers to move from the instrumental perspective to adopt an intrinsic perspective through integrative and paradox approaches when handling tensions in CS decisions. The authors contribute to the broad field of sustainability by proposing a conceptual framework that links MI to the intrinsic perspective of CS decisions. This chapter not only offers several theoretical contributions and future research directions but also posits that the empirical verification of this framework can offer much-needed insights to managers and policy-makers to combat one of the significant threats to the survival of our planet, climate crisis.

Citation

Ramya, S.M., Keng-Highberger, F.T. and Baral, R. (2020), "Enabling an Intrinsic Perspective Towards Approaching Tensions in CS Decisions Through Moral Imagination: A Conceptual Framework", Wasieleski, D.M. and Weber, J. (Ed.) Sustainability (Business and Society 360, Vol. 4), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 99-121. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2514-175920200000004006