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Więcek-Janka, E.; Domańska, A.; Zajkowski, R. Business Sustainable Development and Family Businesses. Encyclopedia. Available online: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/22017 (accessed on 02 July 2024).
Więcek-Janka E, Domańska A, Zajkowski R. Business Sustainable Development and Family Businesses. Encyclopedia. Available at: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/22017. Accessed July 02, 2024.
Więcek-Janka, Ewa, Ada Domańska, Robert Zajkowski. "Business Sustainable Development and Family Businesses" Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/22017 (accessed July 02, 2024).
Więcek-Janka, E., Domańska, A., & Zajkowski, R. (2022, April 20). Business Sustainable Development and Family Businesses. In Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/22017
Więcek-Janka, Ewa, et al. "Business Sustainable Development and Family Businesses." Encyclopedia. Web. 20 April, 2022.
Business Sustainable Development and Family Businesses
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This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/su14074302

For companies, sustainable development generally represents a long-term business orientation towards social, economic and environmental well-being. The concept has gained momentum among researchers partly due to the necessity of finding a modern approach to business development that does not deprive the next generation of the opportunity to meet its own needs.

sustainable development family businesses social identity theory

1. Business Sustainable Development

Sustainable development represents a pervasive research topic currently defined as a relatively universal multi-generational approach to economic development. Brundtland [1] introduced the most popular description, which was subsequently included in the Report for the World Commission on Environment and Development. This report defines sustainable development as “development that meets the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” [2]. Given sustainable development is a transdisciplinary field, it invites many different perspectives. Elkington [3] represents a popular approach, observing that sustainable development must consolidate social, environmental and economic goals in the long term, proposing the TBL construct, a practical framework for sustainable development [4] that allows the measurement of an organization’s performance and successful implementation of solutions.
Given social, environmental and economic challenges do not necessarily have to be addressed via government intervention, special attention has been paid to the role of entrepreneurship, with researchers recognizing that the activities of economic entities can lead to a transformation towards sustainable products and processes. Some researchers have considered entrepreneurship a panacea for ever-increasing social, environmental and economic concerns [5][6][7][8][9][10].
Initial research on enterprise sustainability focused on only one pillar, namely, environmental issues [11], which the literature describes using various terms, including green entrepreneurship [12], environmental entrepreneurship [13] and eco-enterprise [14][15]. Systematic reviews indicated that enterprises may adopt a solution of a circular economy concept by eliminating waste and toxic chemicals and fostering the use of renewable energies [16][17]. Gradually, researchers began to adopt a broader perspective, emphasizing the impact of business operations on sustainable development from the TBL perspective. Moreover, researchers revealed that terms such as green entrepreneurship concerned only one pillar of TBL, with sustainable entrepreneurship that encompasses the totality of TBL representing a conceptually different notion that cannot be used interchangeably with, for example, green entrepreneurship [13]. Enterprises engaging in sustainable development minimize the harmful impacts of their own activities on the natural and social environments and demonstrate responsibility towards social and environmental issues while simultaneously attaining long-term profitability. That is, business sustainability integrates the three dimensions outlined by Elkington [3]—namely, the social, environmental and economic dimensions—and maintains a balance between them [18]. Accordingly, in this entry here use the definition of sustainable development presented by the World Commission on Environment and Development that is expressed by the TBL approach [1][3].

2. Family Businesses

Understanding sustainable development as development that satisfies the needs of present generations without impeding the needs of future generations allows the concept to be equated with the nature of family business functioning. Although there are no uniform criteria defining family businesses, there are many identifiable common features, including family ownership, the participation of family members in management, the family’s strategic control and succession intentions [19]. It is emphasized that family businesses had implemented sustainability practices before this concept was introduced in the literature [20]. The willingness to pass businesses to the next generation determines the preparation of plans with a long-term horizon. In this sense, succession could be considered a decisive factor in launching change processes according to a future-oriented logic by combining continuity, tradition and innovation [21]. The literature demonstrates that businesses operating according to social, environmental and economic goals can create long-term value [22]. Thus, family businesses are motivated by a long-term orientation [23], which implies an inclination to adopt strategies that can guarantee successful longevity and purposefully develop patient capital and long-term investments [24][25]. The potentially higher priority on sustainability practices renders family businesses a special research object.
According to the literature, longevity involves finding common ground and balancing the demands of different interest groups [26]. Engaging in sustainability can help a company develop a positive reputation within its community and cultivate relationships with stakeholders. This enables family businesses to implement strategies that reconcile continuity and sustainability by recognizing and responding to internal and external stakeholders. This approach means families can survive for many generations despite internal and external disruptions [25][27]. Campopiano and De Massis [28] have confirmed that family businesses are attuned to social, environmental and economic concerns due to their multi-generational orientation and their relationship with the local community. One reason for such behaviour is the propensity to protect the socio-emotional wealth of family businesses [29], with Gómez-Mejía et al. [27] adding that “families are emotionally linked to their businesses”. Studies adopting an SEW perspective suggest that family businesses are more likely to engage in sustainable activities than their non-family counterparts due to an inclination to improve family identity and family cohesion [30][31][32]. Consequently, such companies are highly motivated to have social, environmental and economic impacts to maintain the good image of both the company and the family and ultimately transfer a well-established, sustainable business to future generations [33][34].
Given these observations, family businesses represent a special subject of studies on sustainable action, leading to a growing body of research focused on the matter [35]. Most have adopted different approaches to sustainable development and considered various determinants of business engagement in such activities [28][36][37]. According to the literature, a distinction should be made between external and internal aspects of company engagement with sustainable development [38]. External factors primarily result from legal regulations but also derive from the activities of competitors and pressure from stakeholders, including customers, investors and partners [39]. Internal determinants of a company’s implementation of sustainable practices concern the features of business entities. Given the specificity of family businesses, this entry investigates the influence of the internal factors of companies on the decision to embark on sustainability initiatives.
A literature review by Broccardo et al. [40] revealed that it was not possible to comprehensively delineate the features of family businesses that determine their commitment to sustainable development due to the different methods adopted and the heterogeneity of samples. However, more recent bibliometric analysis has confirmed an increase in research focused on the involvement of family businesses in sustainable development [41], confirming the lack of consensus and the existence of conflicting results in most studies, which prompts this study’s comprehensive investigation of factors of family business engagement in sustainability. Moreover, despite the significant contribution of family businesses to social, environmental and economic issues, there remains limited research concerning the different levels of company engagement in sustainable development [42]. In fact, the literature indicates gaps that must be filled through further studies [28][36][43], leading this to emphasize family businesses as units of analysis and attempt to recognize their level of engagement with sustainable development. Furthermore, the entry presents a typology of family business that considers different internal factors that determine the level of a company’s engagement with sustainable development.
It should be stressed that the study covered Polish enterprises that differ from those in Western countries because of the transition from a centrally planned to a market-driven economy [44]. Most of the companies were established after 1989, so their market history is relatively short. This means that the idea of sustainable development was implemented by Polish enterprises with a slight delay in comparison to other countries [45]. Research indicates that the most visible implementation of sustainable development idea is among international enterprises that operate in Poland, are large and dynamically developing companies with Polish capital, as well as among the largest companies of the State Treasury [46]. Currently, this idea is accepted by a wide audience, but there is still little scientific literature in this area [47]. Therefore, family businesses in Poland seem to be an interesting object of sustainable development investigations.

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Subjects: Management; Business
Contributors MDPI registered users' name will be linked to their SciProfiles pages. To register with us, please refer to https://encyclopedia.pub/register :
Ewa Więcek-Janka
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Ada Domańska
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Robert Zajkowski
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