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The chapter aims to explore the corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy domain at EU decision-making level, aiming to understand the nature of the participation shaping the CSR policy agenda co-design.

Building on a conceptual framework of participation, the chapter highlights the literature and policy views around the importance of EU CSR policy and how EU envisage the framework of the CSR policy co-design. By highlighting conceptual dimensions of the participatory governance, different levels of participation that shape the policy are evidenced. In particular, a case analysis emphasising the predominant role of the consultation approach in the decision-making process of the CSR policy is undertaken.

The findings shed light on the shift from the traditional passive participation in EU CSR policy decision making, based on purely communications towards consultation and multi-stakeholders participation. From the multi-stakeholder perspective, the EU Multi-Stakeholder Forum’s strategic relevance is observed, however, with no clear mechanisms to enforce its aims. Although the CSR policy is a core priority on the policy agenda, its voluntary approach justifies its early stages of implementation and fragmented use.

The research is qualitative, based on literature review and policy view. Further research directions could enrich the chapter.

The research contributes to the theoretical discussion around participation in a supranational context. Our insights shed light on the levels of participation and CSR policy goals and call for a critical debate on the EU policy co-design processes. Furthermore, through the lens of a case analysis, it sheds light on how EU CSR forum fits in with the current EU structure and its ‘principle of subsidiarity’, which states that decisions must be taken close to its citizens.

The Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG 12) that aims at ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns is dependent on efficient and effective transport infrastructure. But many new transport infrastructure projects are delayed due to complex conflicts between multiple stakeholders with different stakes. This chapter illustrates how a multi-stakeholder participation process based on systems thinking can be used to generate a shared mental model of stakeholders in conflict. Using the systems thinking and modelling methodology, the complex problem situation is first structured by identifying and analysing the stakeholders. Then a participative approach is employed to develop a systems model that captures the underlying structure responsible for the problem situation. Finally, three strategic interventions are formulated by the stakeholders to improve the system behaviour in the long term. In this chapter, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected using structured interviews, focus groups and secondary sources. Using a New Zealand transport infrastructure project, the chapter shows that effective multi-stakeholder participation, capable of leading to some form of multi-stakeholder partnership, can help reduce delays in a transport infrastructure project. Practically, the chapter provides a framework that can reach an accommodation between conflicting stakeholders. Overall, this chapter contributes New Zealand–based empirical research to the literature on multi-stakeholder participation for achieving SDG 12 within the context of Agenda 2030.

This chapter focuses on an innovative effort in the Italian context in which a complex web of partnerships was created as the foundation of an alternative model of health care. More specifically, the start-up of a health-care organization – Welfare Italia Servizi (WIS) – is analyzed and discussed with respect to its sustainability.

The process of organizing a sustainable health care is analyzed through the theoretical lenses of multi-stakeholders management and partnership perspectives.

The possibility of developing dense knowledge about the WIS’s case has stemmed from our collaboration with the organization board with regard to a research process intended to monitor the organizational start-up and its sustainability challenges.

The case provides new insights into the dynamic nature of building multi-stakeholder partnership in a complex environment; the developmental life-cycle challenge of multi-stakeholder partnership, and the meaning of sustainability. The case suggests a tapestry of issues such as how sustainability may be “paradoxical,” dynamic, led by different and sometimes conflicting logics, and changeable over time like a growing tree in an intricate forest.

The case can stimulate learning and discussions both within the community of practitioners and the community of academics with respect to which promising conditions could help address the challenge of starting-up a sustainable organization in the health-care field.

Constructive deviance has received increasing attention across the last 20 years. However, because the distinction between constructive and traditional forms of deviance (i.e., destructive) is based on the intent behind the behaviors, it can be difficult to determine which acts are constructive. As an umbrella construct consisting of several forms of deviant acts (e.g., whistle-blowing, employee voice, necessary evils), research into constructive deviance has largely remained focused on the individual behaviors to date. While advancements have been made, this focus has limited the consideration of an overarching understanding of constructive deviance in the workplace. Further, constructs like constructive deviance that straddle the bounds between beneficial and detrimental necessitate the exploration into their antecedents as determined by the employees (i.e., apples), their environments (e.g., barrels), or some combination of the two. The author seeks to advance the research in constructive deviance by proposing a testable model. In which, the author develops an interactionist perspective of the antecedents to reposition constructive deviance as the acts of good employees in restrictive or negative environments. In doing so, the author considers how various aspects of individuals, their organizational environments, and the influence of their leaders interact. The author then develops a multi-stakeholder approach to the outcomes of constructive deviance to consider how the various parties (i.e., organization, coworkers, customers) are expected to respond and how these responses impact the more distal outcomes as well as the likelihood of engaging in future constructive deviance.

This study attempts to formulate a conceptual and operational model that encapsulates the highlights of scientific sustainability research and that identifies the critical success factors of sustainable development from the perspective of different stakeholder groups. It seeks to identify viable consensus pathways in sustainable development strategies that are marked by conflicts among different stakeholders. To do so, this study focuses on three case studies that are part of the EU project SMILE, its way of sustainability thinking, and its stakeholders to encapsulate different sustainability approaches and different needs for sustainable development. To identify critical success/failure factors in the search for sustainable development at the interface of economic, environmental, and social factors, we use interview results, first, to compose case study–specific pentagon models. These models offer a systematic framework for sustainability and, in general, distinguish between five key forces, that is, software (e.g., knowledge), hardware (e.g., research facilities), finware (e.g., financial support), ecoware (e.g., environmental amenities), and orgware (e.g., institutional support systems). In a second step, we use both the questionnaire results and a multi-criteria spider approach to quantify the relative importance of the pentagon factors for each stakeholder group. This way we are able to develop stakeholder-specific pentagon models. Although there are many applications of the basic pentagon model in the sustainability literature, our attempt can be seen as the first one that combines cases at different time and spatial scales to generalize the interfaces between scientific research and policy arenas.

The purpose of this book chapter is to examine how sustainable developmental goal (SDG) implementation for sustainability transformation can be driven by the business practice of a multinational enterprise (MNE). It concerns sustainability transformation that takes place in complex environments with the engagement of different types of stakeholders from various organizations and domains. The chapter focuses on inclusive stakeholder orientation to move from a firm-centric to a societal perspective grounded in an ethical, macro-oriented, and network philosophy. The transformation is embedded in the global transformation agenda, the UN 2030 agenda, with its 17 SDGs. In this chapter, the authors assess MNEs’ role in implementing the SDGs by conceptualizing sustainability transformation practice in a business context of IKEA grounded in circular economy and circular society thinking. Implementing the SDGs strengthens the “challenge-driven transformative change.” Based on the theoretical and conceptual framework, the authors have constructed a matrix and contextualized the case of IKEA. It results in a descriptive analysis of MNE SDG implementation for sustainability transformation. The chapter has contributed a general model for a sustainability transformation practice in a business context embedded in circular economy and circular society thinking, which can utilize for challenge-driven transformative change. The new model has been redesigned for its new purpose. The model is constructed based on a new theoretical and conceptual framework and from the context of IKEA as a MNE acting as a globally integrated enterprise with a circular and societal transformation focus.