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The purpose of this study was to identify and determine the best fit model of triple bottom line (TBL) performance. Particularly, it delved into the interrelationships among variables which include sustainable management practices, strategic orientation and organizational culture on TBL performance. This study employed descriptive-correlation technique using Structural Equation Modeling. Data were sourced by administering survey questionnaires to 400 individuals performing key functions among large manufacturing companies operating in Region XII, Philippines. Results displayed that sustainable management practices, strategic orientation and organizational culture positively and significantly correlated with TBL performance. Structural Model 4, which depicted the direct causal relationships of sustainable management practices and organizational culture to TBL performance of large manufacturing companies, satisfied all the indices used and was found to be the best fit model. Finally, this study adds value to a growing body of literature viewing TBL through the lens of corporate sustainability.

This paper aims to elucidate responsible leadership as a construct with strong moral and ethical underpinnings, as well as a focus on multiple stakeholders and the triple bottom line. This paper also highlights the interdependence of the economic, social and environmental dimensions of a business to achieve corporate sustainability.

This conceptual paper is the outcome of analysing and synthesizing the findings of the literature review on three main constructs: responsible leadership, triple bottom line and corporate sustainability. This review enabled the development of logical associations among these constructs.

The literature revealed logical associations between responsible leadership, the triple bottom line and corporate sustainability. All three constructs embody the three dimensions of economic, social and environmental sustainability, which form the basis of the associations.

Responsible leadership, grounded in stakeholder theory, goes beyond the traditional dyadic leader–follower relationship to influence multiple stakeholders within and outside the organization and achieve positive outcomes for both the organization and society. Multiple levels of outcomes and higher levels of organizational performance for businesses are the hallmarks of responsible leadership.

This paper highlights the importance of responsible leadership and triple bottom-line performance for corporate sustainability. Responsible leadership has the potential to create significant impact on business and society, to achieve long-term corporate sustainability. A conceptual model of responsible leadership is also proposed to show the association between responsible leadership, the triple bottom line and corporate sustainability.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical analysis that examines the semiotics of triple bottom line (TBL) and how it has been developed since its inception in the early 1990s.

This study was conducted over a period of nine months, during which semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 40 organizations around the world that were considered to be organizations having best practices in non‐financial reporting. The key interviewees were managers and heads of the sustainability departments within the organization.

This study has attempted using semiotics and coding to show parallel themes within how organizations perceive TBL. The codes of language, compliance, integration and limitations provide symbolic attempts by which sustainability managers create and communicate the perception of “corporate sustainability” through TBL reporting in order to satisfy external pressures and stakeholders. A semiotic analysis of TBL has shown that these four codes or concepts do in fact have a common interpretive scheme.

The non‐financial reporting process or TBL reporting process tend to be conducted and developed by a sustainability team within an organization, rather than just by an individual. The interviews conducted in this research paper are with the head of the sustainability departments at each organization and hence this is a potential limitation in terms of understanding the semiotic powers of TBL.

While the codes explained in this paper do not show the entire culture and views on non‐financial reporting, they do capture a major aspect of it through the eyes of TBL and provide examples of how semiotics can be used to study and map the systems of meaning employed by members of a certain occupational setting. Having a semiotic view provides many conclusions about the study of an organizational culture or framework.

This paper aims to investigate the influence of board characteristics on triple bottom line (TBL) reporting, both at aggregate and component level (environment, social and economic) for the top 50 companies in New Zealand.

Content analysis is used to create reporting indexes for 2016 and 2017, which serve as proxy for TBL reporting. Regression analysis is then used to investigate the association between board characteristics and TBL reporting, along with its separate components.

This paper finds significant positive associations of TBL with profitability and firm size; environmental bottom line with board size and profitability; social bottom line with board size, profitability and firm size; and economic bottom line (ECO) with firm size. A significant negative association is found between ECO and leverage.

This study provides incentives for companies to adopt TBL reporting as the findings show a positive association between the extent of reporting and profitability. This implies that companies should improve their level of reporting while ensuring that voluntary disclosures show a true and fair view to maintain a healthy relationship with their stakeholders.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt to investigate TBL reporting along with its separate dimensions in the NZ context. It takes into account recent changes that occurred in the corporate environment in New Zealand as well as new practices that emerged in the world, especially the diffusion of the Global Reporting Initiative and the International Integrating Reporting Council Framework.

The purpose of this study is to examine the associations between board size, board independence and triple bottom line (TBL) reporting. The TBL report consists of three components, namely, environmental, social and economic indices.

This study’s sample consists of top 50 listed companies from the year 2017 to 2019 on Tadawul Stock Exchange. Ordinary least squares, quantile least squares and robust least squares are used to investigate the associations between board characteristics and TBL reporting, including its separate components.

The authors find a significant negative association between TBL reporting and board independence. Social bottom line is significantly and negatively related to board size and board independence. Results indicate that board independence negatively influences the TBL disclosure of companies. Therefore, companies are encouraged to embrace TBL reporting. This suggests that businesses should improve the quality of their reporting while ensuring that voluntary disclosures reflect an accurate and fair view in order to preserve a positive relationship with stakeholders.

The present study explains the evidence for the determinants of the TBL in Saudi Arabia.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and expand the role of strategic ambiguity (SA) in the field of organizational communication. It treats the triple bottom line (TBL) as indicative of an emerging coalition. This coalition brings together three loosely coupled discourse communities each attempting to advance the notion of green business, corporate social responsibility and sustainability.

This case directs attention to how SA and equivocation built into TBL aids three loosely networked discourse communities – formulated around “profits”, “people” and “planet” – emerge, coalesce and diffuse despite being rooted in imprecise and loosely formulated measures.

The findings indicate that despite its imprecision, lack of specificity and operational indices the TBL provides its members with the belief that they are far better off joining the coalition than going it alone. TBL's openness to multiple interpretations enables each of the discourse communities in the emerging network to expect to win concessions from others and to protect its values from encroachment.

This treatment of TBL suggests that SA can be expanded beyond an intra‐organizational focus to one encompassing emergent coalitions. The expanded notion of SA helps explain the stickiness of knowledge transfer in the early stage of coalition formation and the propensity of critics to view new imprecise but inspiring ideas like TBL as nothing but a fad or passing enthusiasm.

The purpose of this paper is to validate a triple bottom line (TBL) construct, as well as to describe the TBL reasons for implementing sustainable business practices in companies and their business networks.

This study reports on the validation of a TBL construct, in a Spanish context, of a study originally conducted in Norway. In this validation study, 230 companies were selected for participation. A total of 89 usable questionnaires were returned, generating a response rate of 38.5 per cent.

The empirical findings indicate major similarities and minor differences between organizations in Spain and Norway across two studies. By extension, the empirical findings appear to be valid and reliable across contexts and through time.

This study explains the structural properties of the main reasons for business sustainability (economic, social and environmental) and business sustainability efforts in companies and the supply chains or business networks.

Business sustainability efforts need to be assessed in a systematic manner, and the validated TBL construct offers a foundation for doing this, though it needs to be complemented with other elements and details in connection with business sustainability.

Business sustainability efforts have been evolving over time and are increasingly seen to consider economic viability, as well as environmental sustainability and social responsibility. This study deals with how these elements of TBL are interrelated with respect to business sustainability.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate critically the outcomes of a research project involving collaboration with an irrigation company seeking to improve outcomes from its triple bottom line (TBL) reporting process. Given the imminent basin‐wide crisis within which the organisation operates due to unsustainable over‐allocation of water for irrigation, the paper aims to offer insights from this context as a microcosm of the global sustainability crisis.

The paper is based on action research with a case study organisation. Organisational learning theory is used to assess the quality and depth of learning that occurred in terms of the prospects for the radical changes needed to retreat from ongoing unsustainable water resource management practices.

The organisation's failure to link past learnings with future strategising undermined the potential for TBL reporting to develop into an iterative learning cycle that can effect change. While “small wins” were achieved, these need to be seen as part of a broader paradigmatic change movement if they are to result in enhanced sustainability.

The paper is based on a case study that builds from the authors' review of the literature that identifies ways to improve the process of reporting rather than focusing on report content alone. The case study benefited from substantial access and interaction with the organisation's internal stakeholders and offers new insights about how to improve the process of TBL reporting that builds on theoretical and experiential perspectives of other critical researchers undertaking field‐based engagement research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of both internal and external environmental management (EM) on the triple bottom line (TBL), which embraces environmental, economic, and social performance. Both direct and indirect effects are estimated in order to capture the overall relationships between EM and performance. Furthermore, the paper contributes to the ongoing debate of measuring the latent variable “performance” as a formative rather than reflective construct.

A conceptual model is drawn up based on the existing literature in EM and considering the TBL paradigm. The model is tested on a large sample of Italian firms; thus, the unit of analysis is represented by single firms. A structural equation model (SEM) is tested to analyze the data, and its estimation is performed using both Lisrel and PLS – namely, covariance‐ and component‐based SEM.

Covariance‐based SEM shows that internal EM is a successful driver of TBL. EM directly improves environmental and social performance, but contributes only indirectly to the economic bottom line. In contrast, external EM is a less effective driver, contributing only positively to environmental performance and exerting only an indirect, marginal impact on economic performance. When using a formative mode to measure performance and component‐based SEM, internal EM has a positive direct and indirect influence on the TBL; however, external EM does not directly improve economic performance.

Data collection was completed at the end of 2008 and comprises only data about Italian firms. Items in the questionnaire allow for a two‐year lag period.

When targeting to meet the TBL, managers should concentrate their efforts on internal EM, which is more effective than external EM.

The paper tests the direct and indirect impacts of internal and external EM on the TBL measuring performance using a formative model and showing the different results obtained in the causal relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to assess both private and public organizations in order to compare the similarities and differences between the organizational priority logic of TBL elements. The research objective is, therefore, to describe the organizational logic, so as to prioritize between economic, social and environmental elements of the triple bottom line (TBL). The approach is also to describe the common denominators and differentiators between private and public organizations.

Based on judgmental sampling and in-depth interviews of executives at private and public hospitals in Spain. Data were collected from the directors of communication of private hospitals, and from the executive in charge of corporate social responsibility of public hospitals.

The organizational logic for prioritizing the elements of TBL differs between private and public hospitals. The economic element of TBL is crucial to survival for private hospitals. Compliance with the legal requirements and certifications of the environmental element is the major concern for public hospitals. Private and public hospitals would both pay considerably greater attention to the social element of TBL, if there were no judicial and economic restrictions.

This study differs from previous ones in terms of exploring the interfaces and relationships between TBL elements, which focus on the organizational logic to prioritize between the elements of TBL. There are both common denominators and differentiators between private and public hospitals, when it comes to the priority logic of TBL elements.

The priority logic of determining the most important TBL element it is mainly about satisfying organizational needs and societal demands. Determining the second most important TBL element is mostly about organizational preferences and what it wants to achieve. Determining the least important TBL element it is about the organizational mindset for and with respect to the future.

This study contributes to determining the appropriate organizational priority logic of the TBL elements, as well as common denominators and differentiators between private and public organizations. It also contributes to explaining the organizational reasoning as to why one TBL element may be prioritized over another, an issue which has not been addressed in existing theory and previous studies.