Negotiating sustainability : Exploring translations of the idea to account for externalities in business

Abstract: More and more actors in the transnational arena develop approaches to translate the vague phenomenon sustainability into more economic te rms in order to make it easier manageable for business. Many of these approaches are based on the traditional economic concept of externalities. But although the basic idea is the same in a ll of them, it is materialized in different ways. This resea rch explores differences in the translations of eight organizations, and the factors that influenced these translation processes. In semi - structured interview s different perspectives and experienc es were explored, and further backed up by documentary research. Our findings include that the translations are both dependent on the respective organizational context as well as the social context and institutional embeddedness of these organizations. Fur ther, we suggest that herein it can be distinguished between two types of organizations - smaller disruptive and larger established organizations. Moreover, we argue that notwithstanding the differences in their translations, the organizations benefit each other by carrying the idea to account for externalities further and inducing macro level change by taking certain roles in the transnational governance system.