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Cited by 722Environmental Sustainability in BusinessManagement and Organizational StudiesCorporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 109 of the 111 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

An Inconvenient Truth: How Organizations Translate Climate Change into Business as Usual

Wright, Christopher, Nyberg, Daniel·2017·Academy of Management Journal
DOI 10.5465/amj.2015.0718
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Abstract

Climate change represents the grandest of challenges facing humanity. In the space of two centuries of industrial development, human civilization has changed the chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans, with devastating consequences. Business organizations are central to this challenge, in that they support the production of escalating greenhouse gas emissions but also offer innovative ways to decarbonize our economies. In this paper, we examine how businesses respond to climate change. Based on five in-depth case studies of major Australian corporations over a 10-year period (2005–2015), we identify three key stages in the corporate translation of climate change: framing, localizing, and normalizing. We develop a grounded model that explains how the revolutionary import of grand challenges is converted into the mundane and comfortable concerns of “business as usual.” We find that critique is the major driver of this process by continuously revealing the tensions between the demands of the grand challenge and business imperatives. Our paper contributes to the literature on business and the natural environment by identifying how and why corporate environmental initiatives deteriorate over time. More specifically, we highlight the policy limitations of a reliance on business and market responses to the climate crisis.

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Citations

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Show all 111 references

Research works printed but not linked: 11

  1. 10.5465/1556363 · DOI · Paper page
  2. Crouch C. 2011. The strange non-death of neoliberalism . Cambridge, England: Polity.
  3. Forbes L. C., Jermier J. M. 2002. The institutionalization of voluntary organizational greening and the ideals of environmentalism: Lessons about official culture from symbolic organization theory. In A. J. Hoffman & M. Ventresca (Eds.), Organizations, policy and the natural environment: Institutional and strategic perspectives : 194–213. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
  4. 10.5465/257008 · DOI
  5. IPCC. 2014. Climate change 2014: Mitigation of climate change. Contribution of working group III to the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
  6. Lazarus R. J., 2009, Cornell Law Review, 94, 1153
  7. Mann M. E., Kump L. R. 2015. Dire predictions: Understanding climate change (2nd ed.). New York, NY: DK Publishing.
  8. Manne R., 2011, Quarterly Essay, 43, 1
  9. 10.5465/257052 · DOI
  10. 10.5465/1556361 · DOI
  11. Yin R. K. 2003. Case study research: Design and methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

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Metadata

Authors
Wright, C., & Nyberg, D.
Affiliations
  • The University of Sydney (AU)
  • University of Newcastle Australia (AU)
ORCID
Venue
Academy of Management Journal
Publisher
Academy of Management
Published
2017-10
Volume
60
Issue
5
Pages
1633-1661
ISSN
  • 0001-4273 (ISSN-L)
  • 1948-0989
DOI
10.5465/amj.2015.0718
OpenAlex
W2549987064
Semantic Scholar
f20571a311cc9d7c403c5b9b4f78e7152df3c73f
Cited by
722
References
111
Citations by year
2026: 106 · 2025: 114 · 2024: 96 · 2023: 102 · 2022: 96 · 2021: 63 · 2020: 65 · 2019: 55 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 7
FWCI
54.66
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Academy of Management Journal (publishedVersion)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion)
  • Malmö University Publications (Malmö University) (submittedVersion)
  • NOVA (University of Newcastle Australia) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Environmental Sustainability in Business
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Management and Organizational Studies
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability
Keywords
climate change, corporate climate action, business as usual, corporate environmental initiatives, framing, localization, normalization, societal challenges, critique, greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonization, Australian firms, corporate environmental policy

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