Sustainable development by force? Stakeholder influence and strategic response towards sustainable development

Abstract: Earlier, sustainable development was perceived as a hindrance to economic growth. This seems not to be the case today because strategies towards sustainable development are becoming more common, especially in nonprofit organizations. Sustainable development is about creation of strategies that include wellbeing of present and next generations. This shows that it is important for today’s organizations to be sustainable. However, stakeholders have a part to play in this since they are capable of influencing organizations towards sustainable development. To these influences organizations respond either in a proactive or defensive way. As a result the purpose of this study is to investigate the stakeholders’ influences on sustainable development in a nonprofit organization and how this nonprofit organization responds to these influences strategically. After looking at previous literature about relevant concepts, three research questions were formulated. This study is a case study where in five in-depth interviews have been carried in a Swedish nonprofit organization with an ongoing project about sustainable development. In the course of the study it became clear that there are several important aspects to consider when thriving for sustainability. Furthermore, some stakeholder groups possess more power to influence sustainable development and the organizational response might not have to be exclusively proactive or defensive. Lastly results of this study show that important identified factors of sustainability in this organization are economic, environmental and social. The internal stakeholders are the ones influencing sustainable development in this particular organization and the organization responds by creation of proactive strategies.