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
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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“Wright and Nyberg (2017) argue that the organizations in pursuit of their economic gains have in the past lobbied against carbon emissions initiatives and further delayed constructive action.”
From Climate change and COP26: Are digital technologies and information management part of the problem or the solution? An editorial reflection and call to action (2022) · cites this paper as Wright and Nyberg (2017)
In the citing paper
“These are clear indications that human influence on climate systems is clear and growing (Wright & Nyberg, 2017).”
From Climate change and COP26: Are digital technologies and information management part of the problem or the solution? An editorial reflection and call to action (2022) · cites this paper as Wright & Nyberg, 2017
Citations
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“Certainly, businesses can successfully engagewith relatively tame environmental problems that are resolvable through technical activities that also support profitability (Rittell & Webber, 1973).”
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Flagged first, then by citations
2 of the 111 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.
Research works printed but not linked: 11
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- Crouch C. 2011. The strange non-death of neoliberalism . Cambridge, England: Polity.
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
George, G., Merrill, R. K., & Schillebeeckx, S. J. D. (2021) · Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice · doi:10.1177/1042258719899425 · Cited by 1,066
“Recent contributions have focused on resource dependencies and nexus thinking (George et al., 2015; Schillebeeckx et al., 2018), framing (Reinecke & Ansari, 2016 ; Wright & Nyberg, 2017), as well as the pursuit, promise, and limitations of inclusive growth (George et al., 2019; Halme et al., 2012).”
BackgroundBuckley, P. J., Doh, J. P., & Benischke, M. H. (2017) · Journal of International Business Studies · doi:10.1057/s41267-017-0102-z · Cited by 804
Dwivedi, Y. K., Hughes, L., Kar, A. K., Baabdullah, A. M., Grover, P., Abbas, R., Andreini, D., Abumoghli, I., Barlette, Y., Bunker, D., et al. (2022) · International Journal of Information Management · doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2021.102456 · Cited by 761
“Wright and Nyberg (2017) argue that the organizations in pursuit of their economic gains have in the past lobbied against carbon emissions initiatives and further delayed constructive action.”
BackgroundAguilera, R. V., Correa, J. A. A., Marano, V., & Tashman, P. (2021) · Journal of Management · doi:10.1177/0149206321991212 · Cited by 522
“Thus far, management scholars have highlighted how corporations are both key sources of environmental degradation and agents for mitigating or solving the “wicked” challenges, like climate change (Hoffman & Jennings, 2018; Howard-Grenville, Buckle, Hoskins, & George, 2014; Wright & Nyberg, 2017).”
Correa, J. A. A., Marcus, A. A., & Vogel, D. J. (2019) · Academy of Management Annals · doi:10.5465/annals.2018.0014 · Cited by 489
“However, other studies cast doubt on the relationship between progressive environmental behavior and globalization (e.g., Wright & Nyberg, 2017).”
Metadata
- Authors
- Wright, C., & Nyberg, D.
- Affiliations
- The University of Sydney (AU)
- University of Newcastle Australia (AU)
- 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
- 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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