ABSTRACT

Despite the crucial role that multinational enterprises (MNEs) can play in advancing sustainability, progress toward meeting the United Nations’ Agenda for Sustainable Development by 2030 has been slow. MNEs are partly responsible, and even though they recognize that they are part of a larger social, economic and ecological ecosystem, and that sustainability can enhance their long-term growth and viability, they have been slow to embrace it. The sustainability and MNE literature initially focused on the sustainability priorities found in developed market multinational enterprises (or DMNEs). Increasingly, “home-grown” (or indigenous) multinationals from emerging market regions have garnered more attention but research on sustainability in the emerging market context is still lagging, despite the fact that emerging markets – and its businesses – have potentially much to gain from embracing sustainability. This paper examines the sustainability discourse in South Africa and identifies the sustainability priorities of its largest indigenous firms. The sustainability reports of South Africa’s largest public firms in 2019 were analyzed using Centering Resonance Analysis (CRA). Results indicate that South African MNEs focus on business and societal aspects of sustainability, more so than on environmental protection initiatives. This finding likely reflects: 1) South Africa’s context and its sustainability priorities, 2) a diverse sectoral sample, 3) geographic dispersion of South African MNE subsidiaries (presence in other emerging, developed or developing markets with different sustainability priorities by market profile), or 4) a combination of these factors.

摘要

尽管跨国企业 (MNE) 在推进可持续发展方面可以发挥关键作用，但到 2030 年实现联合国可持续发展议程的进展缓慢。跨国公司负有部分责任，尽管他们认识到自己是更大的社会、经济和生态生态系统的一部分，而且可持续性可以增强他们的长期增长和生存能力，但他们接受它的速度很慢。可持续性和跨国公司文献最初侧重于发达市场跨国企业（或 DMNE）中的可持续性优先事项。来自新兴市场地区的“本土”（或本地）跨国公司越来越受到关注，但对新兴市场背景下可持续性的研究仍然滞后，尽管新兴市场——及其企业——有可能从拥抱可持续性中获益良多。本文审视了南非的可持续性话语，并确定了其最大的本土公司的可持续性优先事项。使用中心共振分析 (CRA) 分析了南非最大的上市公司 2019 年的可持续发展报告。结果表明，南非的跨国公司更关注可持续性的商业和社会方面，而不是环境保护举措。这一发现可能反映了：1) 南非的背景及其可持续性优先事项，2) 多样化的行业样本，3) 南非跨国公司子公司的地理分布（按市场概况在其他具有不同可持续性优先事项的新兴、发达或发展中市场的存在），