Abstract
A central claim within the sustainable development literature is that realizing sustainable outcomes requires a move away from a conceptualization of the environment as a separate, bounded, independently given entity. In this article, the conceptualization of the environment within best-selling strategy textbooks in the United Kingdom and Australia in 2011 is reviewed. The article focuses on strategy textbooks as it is argued that corporate strategists are key actors in the realization of sustainable outcomes, and that the constructs those individuals may learn from texts are potentially key to the realization of sustainable outcomes. The findings show that the constructs in the textbooks offer a sclerotic, dehumanized view of the environment that is partitioned into external and internal categories by an organizational boundary—a limitation, it is argued, that will not foster sustainable outcomes.
Keywords
Introduction
All narratives are subject to editing and negotiation that define the “included and excluded, relevant and irrelevant, empowered and disempowered” (Cronon, 1992, p. 1349), and as such cater to a particular perspective. However, textbooks are not necessarily perceived as pandering to a particular perspective, arguably because the metaphor of “textbook operation” implies operating in a set of agreed-upon and regulated procedures (Crawford, 2003) that occur in a bubble of ahistorical, decontextualized truth (Cummings & Bridgman, 2011). Consequently, a textbook is commonly perceived to be a “delivery system of facts” (Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991, p. 1) that has “bona fide status with a potential for universal application” (Issitt, 2004, p. 685). This view of textbooks is necessarily challenged, with arguments centering on their being negotiated ideological devices that capture claims to truth, and that through their application in education they help to legitimize and normalize a particular social order (e.g., see Bouvier, 1984; Cameron, Ireland, Lussier, New, & Robbins, 2003; Crawford, 2003; Gilbert, 2003; Issitt, 2004; Mir, 2003; Pingel, 1999).
Notwithstanding that textbooks may not be read by students (Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991; Cameron et al., 2003), ripostes to the criticisms of textbooks as normalizing devices are that any text can have multiple readings (Crawford, 2003), and that a text may not necessarily reflect what is taught in a classroom (Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991; Cameron et al., 2003; Enz, 1986; Hackley, 2003). For example, a textbook reader may not end up being paradigmatically colonized by the text, while an instructor may use a textbook purely as a foil from which to develop deconstructive and critical arguments regarding the “facts” within. Nevertheless, the central challenge that textbooks are ideological devices remains (e.g., see Bouvier, 1984; Cummings & Bridgman, 2011; Enz, 1986; Mir, 2003; Ross & Murdick, 1977).
This article reviews how “environment” and “sustainable development” are defined and conceptualized in best-selling strategy textbooks in 2011, the year in which the original study was conducted. While the inability to gather data on best-selling strategy textbooks in the United States means that the scope of the study is limited to the United Kingdom and Australia, the final list of 23 textbooks in these two countries does include 14 U.S. editions and one Asia-Pacific edition of a U.S. text. Thus, as 15 of the textbooks reviewed are U.S. texts, it is reasonable to hypothesize that the results from this study also apply to that country.
The study’s focus on how the environment and sustainable development are conceptualized in these textbooks is based on the premise that sustainability is considered to be a key issue for organizations as a source of advantage, innovation, and the catalyst for new and profitable management techniques (e.g., see Hopkins, 2009; Kiron, Kruschwitz, Haanaes, & von Streng Velken, 2012; Kiron, Kruschwitz, Reeves, & Goh, 2013). Further, there have been consistent calls for the development of sustainable management theories (e.g., see Gladwin, Kennelly, & Krause, 1995; Starik & Kanashiro, 2013). The driver for this current study is to understand, principally, how the environment is defined and conceptualized within the best-selling strategy textbooks in Australia and the United Kingdom. This focus is taken because of arguments within the sustainable development literature, which in précis advocate a move away from a fractured epistemology that posits the environment as an entity separate from humans and, in turn, organizations (e.g., see Egri & Pinfield, 1999; Gladwin et al., 1995; Shrivastava, 1995). In so doing, the literature argues for a move away from Cartesian dualism toward embracing systemic, nonbounded understandings of humanity’s relationship with all that surrounds us. Thus, it contends that humanity’s conception of the environment should not be that it is a separate, bracketed-out “thing.” The relevance of this to strategy textbooks is that the United Nations, notwithstanding the views of others, argues that key protagonists in the realization of sustainable outcomes are organizations and, in turn, “corporate strategists” (U.N. Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Global Sustainability [UNSGHLPS], 2012, p. 22). Consequently, if corporate strategists are key actors in the realization of sustainable outcomes, it is appropriate to question how the environment is conceptualized within the textbooks from which those strategists may learn.
The article proceeds in the following manner. First a discussion on sustainable development, identification of organizations and corporate strategists as key actors, and the challenge to separable, bounded understandings of the environment is brought forward. The study’s design, methodology and mode of data collection are then discussed. Following this, the findings are presented. While these findings focus on the list of best-selling textbooks in 2011 when the original study was conducted, this section is also supplemented by a brief review of the latest editions of the texts from the 2011 list. This supplement enhances the relevancy of this article as, given the review period involved, significant time has elapsed between the original study and publication. After presenting the findings, the results are discussed and implications brought forward. To close and as an endnote, the article comments on the environment and sustainable development.
Sustainable Development Key Actors and Conceptions of the Environment
The roots of the contemporary call for sustainable development can arguably be found in the environmental movement of the 1960s and the publication of key texts (Carruthers, 2001; Tulloch, 2013; Tulloch & Neilson, 2014), such as Silent Spring (Carson, 1962), The Population Bomb (Ehrlich, 1971), and The Limits to Growth (Meadows, Meadows, Randers, Behrens, & Visser, 1972). Tulloch (2013) argues that these texts, when coupled to Hardin’s (1974) lifeboat ethic and the concept of carrying capacity, informed the radical environmental discourse of the time, a discourse that entered mainstream consciousness via the publication of Our Common Future (World Commission on Environment and Development [WCED], 1987; on this, see Carruthers, 2001; Shrivastava & Hart, 1994; Steer & Wade-Gery, 1993; Tulloch, 2013; Tulloch & Neilson, 2014; Yates, 2012).
Our Common Future (1987) defines sustainable development as, “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987, p. 8). This definition, however, has attracted critique such as its being a compromise aimed at dissolving historical conflicts between ecological and economic concerns (e.g., see Banerjee, 2003; Carruthers, 2001; Tulloch, 2013; Tulloch & Neilson, 2014). Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that sustainable development is now the dominant global discourse on ecological concerns (Carruthers, 2001; Tulloch, 2013), and a concept that is increasingly important for organizations and business leaders to embrace (e.g., see Blewitt, 2008; Byrch, Kearins, Milne, & Morgan, 2007; Gladwin et al., 1995; Hopkins, 2009; Kiron et al., 2012; Kiron et al., 2013). Taking this logic further, if organizations are central actors then organizational leaders and in turn corporate strategists are key, especially as these individuals are critical in marshalling the resources for and setting the direction of organizations. The importance of corporate strategists is recognized in the United Nations’ 2012 update to Our Common Future (1987), that is, Resilient People, Resilient Planet (2012). This report identifies “corporate strategists” (UNSGHLPS, 2012, p. 22) as key actors who “have more opportunity than ever to pick and choose from the best practices and resources . . . combine them in new and previously unforeseen ways . . . [and thus help] . . . to drive sustainable development” (UNSGHLPS, 2012, p. 22). This recognition of organizations and corporate strategists as key actors in the realization of sustainable development arguably highlights how sustainable development has “morphed to accommodate neoliberal assumptions” (Tulloch, 2013, p. 109) and moved away from its radical roots. However, if organizations and corporate strategists are key to realizing sustainable outcomes, then key to enabling such outcomes is the cognition of those individuals. And this is especially relevant if it is accepted that individuals act upon the basis of their cognitive representations of the world around them, and that cognition is informed through education and thus textbooks (e.g., see Lakoff, 2010; March & Simon, 1958; Simon, 1947).
A central argument regarding our ability to realize sustainable development is our understanding of the environment, that is, whether we consider it to be something that is separate and “out there,” has equivalence with the economy, or is inseparable from ourselves—in short, whether we embrace dualistic or monistic understandings. In terms of conceptualizing the environment, it is argued that realizing sustainable outcomes requires a move away from dualistic understandings. Most simply and directly, Our Common Future (1987) argues that “the environment does not exist as a sphere separate from human actions, ambitions, and needs, and attempts to defend it in isolation from human concerns have given the very word environment a connotation of naivety” (WCED, 1987, p. xi). This statement implicates a move away from a dualistic understanding wherein the environment is considered as something that is a thing that is bounded, separate, and external to humanity. Rather, it implies a monistic understanding where individuals understand that they are their surroundings (Suzuki, 2008, as cited in Tulloch, 2013).
To explicate, Our Common Future (1987; also referred to as the Brundtland Report) argues that humans have historically understood the planet as “a large world in which human activities and their effects were neatly compartmentalized within nations, within sectors (energy, agriculture, trade) and within broad areas of concern (environmental, economic, social)” (WCED 1987, p. 4). This understanding conceptualizes the world as consisting of separate domains, for example, environment, society and economy. However, a challenge to this type of conceptualizing is that it reinforces a false dichotomy that there are two separate categories: humans and everything else (nature; for further explanation, see Castree, 2002; Latour, 1999a, 1999b; Newton, 2002). A counter to this is the “real world of interlocked economic and ecological systems . . . [that] . . . will not change” (WCED, 1987, p. 9); thus, if the “real” world will not change, the challenge is whether humanity’s understandings and our “policies and institutions” (WCED, 1987, p. 9) can.
As such the call for sustainable development is also a call for a change in humanity’s understandings, in that to realize sustainable development humans need to embrace an understanding that the environment is not separate and out there; rather it surrounds and is entwined with them (Ingold, 2011). Consequently, sustainable development is not about saving “the environment,” because to do so would imply that the environment is a separate thing to be saved. Rather, sustainable development is arguably, as per the implications of the Brundtland definition, about us humans (present and future) facilitating development through a change in our understanding of ourselves relative to everything else, a change that moves us from dualistic to a monistic (i.e., singular, not split), noncompartmentalized (nonbounded) understanding. In this regard, it could be argued that we need to recognize the obviousness of the “mutual embedding of humans and the rest of nature” (Starik & Kanashiro, 2013, p. 8). In sum, the logic of the argument is that the misalignment between humanity’s ontology (reality) and epistemology (knowledge practices) requires rectification. Or alternatively as Gladwin et al. (1995) claim, we are suffering a “profound epistemological crisis” (p. 874) that splits humans from nature. Thus to realize sustainable outcomes we need to move to a knowledge base that implies a connectionist as opposed to an atomistic ontology (Boisot & McKelvey, 2010). This move implies a change to theories and frameworks that do not assume and/or perpetuate the notion that there is a “phenomenal world [that can be] directly and unproblematically observed and described by a disinterested actor who remains external to what is being observed” (Boisot & McKelvey, 2010, p. 415).
If it is accepted that organizations and corporate strategists are key actors in realizing sustainable development, this becomes a challenge for organizational theory. If theories of organization site the organization as central and perpetuate notions of a separate environment to be analyzed and exploited (e.g., see Egri & Pinfield, 1999; Shrivastava, 1995), the ability of the strategist to realize sustainable outcomes will be hampered. And even though such separatist theories may enable particular forms of analysis, they flounder with regard to perpetuating a fractured epistemology and, in turn, dualistic understandings that fail to recognize systemic interconnections. As such, it can and has been argued that organizational theories need reorientation so that the organization is no longer considered as separate, and that this will help realize sustainable outcomes (e.g., see Egri & Pinfield, 1999; Katz & Gartner, 1988; McAuley, Duberle, & Johnson, 2007; Sarasvathy, 2001, 2004).
In overview, the logic of this argument is that organizations and in turn corporate strategists are key actors in the enabling of sustainable development. Hence, sustainable development requires a change in our understandings so that we do not see ourselves as separate to the environment. Furthermore, theories guide action, and if theories imply and perpetuate a world of separations and discrete entities such as humans and the environment, our ability to realize sustainable outcomes is hindered. Consequently, if corporate strategists learn the fundamentals of strategy in a university strategy course, many of which have an associated textbook, a key consideration is how organization relative to the environment is articulated within those textbooks. A further consideration is whether a dualistic or monistic understanding of humanity’s relationship with the environment is perpetuated. Perpetuating dualistic understanding implies that the future corporate strategist may have a conceptualization that reinforces separation between the organization and the environment. And as such, that individual will be hindered in his or her ability to enable organizations to realize sustainable outcomes. Similarly, how and if sustainable development is defined in the text will also potentially impact the individual’s ability to enable sustainable outcomes. These two considerations drive the research questions at the core of this study, the first being the primary question:
Research Design, Methodology, and Data Collection
The primary aim of this research is to understand how the environment is defined and conceptualized in strategy textbooks. Given the context of this study, the secondary aim is to understand if and how sustainable development is defined. A simple search on the bookselling website Amazon confirms a plethora of available strategy textbooks. However, the time and resource constraints of this study dictated that a more manageable list be reviewed. Data were gathered in November 2011, with the focus on identifying best sellers to ensure a manageable list of textbooks. As an Internet search for listings of best-selling textbooks yielded no results, these lists were requested from some well-known publishers of academic textbooks (e.g., Wiley, Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and Cengage). Each publisher was asked for advice on the best-seller rankings for strategy/strategic management textbooks in the territories of the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States in 2011. In response, some of the publishers, although not all, provided a list of best-selling titles or in one case a list of titles with the number of university courses that had adopted a title as their course textbook. Those publishers who did respond requested that their data remain anonymous; thus, their specific data are not published within the context of this article.
In addition to the publishing houses and as a way of attempting to triangulate the data, an international book sales data monitoring company was contacted for sales data on strategy textbooks within the aforementioned territories. Furthermore, the University Co-Operative Bookshop chain of Australia was contacted for strategic management textbook sales in the year to October 2011 (the most recent 12-month period they could provide at the time of the request). This chain is the largest seller of textbooks in Australia with a shop on almost every Australian campus. Consequently, its sales data can be considered indicative of the strategy textbooks being recommended within Australian universities.
In sum, four lists were obtained: (a) from a publisher, the top-10 strategy textbooks in Australia based on course adoptions; (b) from another publisher, the top-10 best-selling texts (by sales volume) in Australia; (c) from an international book sales monitoring company, the top-20 best sellers for the United Kingdom and, separately, Australia; and (d) from the University Co-Operative Bookshop, sales data from its Australian stores for the year to October 2011. All the sources requested that the actual sales of any particular title not be shared and, with the exception of the University Co-Op, all requested anonymity. Finally, although attempts were made to obtain data from the United States both via the publishers and also a book sales monitoring agency, no responses were received. Given this lack of response from the United States, the book-selling website Amazon was asked whether they could provide best-selling data for the year to October 2011. The response received was that this would not be possible. The four lists provided by the United Kingdom and Australian sources, however, provided a list of 46 strategic management textbooks.
On reviewing the Australian sales volume data from the University Co-Operative Bookshop (27 titles), approximately 95% of strategy textbook sales in Australia were found to represent just 10 titles. Furthermore, the bookshop’s sales volume data indicated that many titles ranked after 10 in the sales ranking sold only one copy in the 12-month period. Using this information as an example for the other lists and regions, the 46 titles were reduced to a more manageable, shorter list for review. To create a shorter list of the best-selling textbooks in Australia and the United Kingdom, the following decision rules were applied: A textbook would be included in the final shortlist if (a) it was ranked in the top 10 of either an Australian or U.K. ranking according to a sales data monitoring organization, (b) it was in the top 20 of an Australian and U.K. ranking according to a sales data monitoring organization, (c) it was in the top 10 of sales according to the University Co-Operative Bookshop of Australia, and (d) it was in the top 10 of either of the two other lists that were provided by publishers on best-selling textbooks or number of course adoptions. This shortlist resulted in 23 textbooks as highlighted in Table 1.
Strategy Textbook Titles as of 2011.
Once this final list of textbooks was collated, a copy of each textbook was obtained and data collected. The two key research questions at the core of this study informed the focus of data gathering. Data were gathered on the definitions of the environment and how it is discussed, and similarly for sustainable development/sustainability (as shown in Table 2). To obtain the data, the index and glossary of each text was checked for mention of the above terms and, if apparent, the term and its use on the page(s) recorded. If a specific term was not mentioned in the index or glossary, the books’ chapters were reviewed for mention of the terms or associated terms; for example, with regard to natural environment or sustainability, terms such as ecological or environmental integrity were also considered (see Table 2 for examples). In addition to identifying if and how a term was defined, consideration was given to how it was conceptualized. For example, with regard to the environment, as Table 2 indicates, notes were taken on whether the environment was considered to have levels (micro, meso, macro) and/or was split into external and internal environments relative to the organization. If this splitting was evident, the texts were also reviewed for discussion of organizational boundaries and thus how the boundary between the external and internal environment was identified.
Strategy Textbook Titles and Constructs/Definitions for 2011 Titles and Latest Editions of Titles as of November 2015.
After collecting the data, the definitions and concepts offered by the 23 textbooks were analyzed. The analysis in this study was conducted within a frame of reference regarding the sustainable development literature. As such, the focus was not only on descriptions but also on interpretations through the refraction of that literature. In this regard, the study involved critical discourse analysis, wherein there is a focus on the ideology and language use of texts to enable the identification of underlying themes and meanings (e.g., see Robson, 2002; Rogers, 2004; Van Dijk, 2001). It should be noted that the “Results” section concentrates on the 2011 list and the edition of the texts at that time. However, given the time between the study and article publication, the results are supplemented with a brief review of the latest editions of the texts from the 2011 list that were available in November 2015. Thus, as can be seen in Table 2, each of the 23 titles includes a review of the edition from the 2011 list and additional notes from the latest edition as of November 2015, where available.
Results
The conceptualization of the environment within the textbooks reveals a number of consistent messages. First, definitional exactitude is lacking in terms of what the environment is, and/or there are multiple categories of environment discussed. Second, the environment is consistently discussed as being a repository of opportunities and threats that an organization needs to analyze, exploit, or avoid. Third, an organization has an external and internal environment. Taking each point in turn, to illustrate the lack of definitional exactitude and multiplicity of categories, Carpenter and Sanders (2009), for instance, highlight that the “external environment consists of a wide array of economic and socio-political factors” (p. 106). Similarly, Hanson, Hitt, Ireland, and Hoskisson (2011) outline that a “firm’s external environment is divided into three main areas: the general, industry and competitor environment” (p. 36), wherein the general environment is “composed of dimensions in broader society that influence an industry and indirectly, the firms within it” (p. 37). Likewise, Capon (2008) describes the external environment as “literally the big wide world in which organizations operate” (p. 31) while Hubbard and Beamish (2011) argue that “the environment represents all those aspects outside the organization that affect the business strategy of an organization” (p. 21). Similarly, J. Thompson and Martin (2010) define the environment as “everything and everyone outside the organization or organizational boundary—including competitors, customers, financiers, suppliers and government” (p. 787) while Wheelan and Hunger (2010) state that “the external environment consists of variables (opportunities and threats) that are outside the organization” (p. 16). Hence, the environment is presented as having a wide array of factors, general dimensions in society, variables, and categories. Reinforcing this lack of definitional exactitude, the environment is portrayed as not only a general thing but more specifically as “much more than the ecological green issues that the word commonly evokes” (Capon, 2008, p. 31), and/or an element that has “long been a factor in firm strategy, primarily from the standpoint of access to raw materials” (Carpenter & Sanders, 2009, p. 111).
With regard to the environment being a repository of opportunities and threats, the texts are consistent. For example, Capon’s (2008) argues that the “external environment is where the opportunities and threats arise from to confront the organization” (p. 6), while Johnson, Whittington, and Scholes (2011) claim that “the environment is what gives organizations their means of survival. It creates opportunities and presents threats” (p. 49). Furthermore, by analyzing the external environment, “a firm identifies the critical threats and opportunities in its competitive environment” (Barney & Hesterly, 2010, p. 8), especially as these threats and opportunities “could significantly benefit or harm an organization in the future” (David, 2011, p. 43). Crucially, “identifying opportunities and threats is an important objective of studying the general environment” (Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson, 2011, p. 39), if not the sole objective. In these terms, Grant (2010) highlights that “the emphasis of the book has been the identification of profit opportunities in the external environment of the firm” (p. 122). Given that the texts are consistent in their view that “successful managers must recognize opportunities and threats” (Dess, Lumpkin, Eisner, & McNamara, 2010, p. 40), a focus on the environment being a repository of opportunities and threats is self-reinforcing, especially because opportunities and threats affect how a firm “pursues its mission” (Hill & Jones, 2010, p. 17) and “provide a foundation for strategic direction” (Harrison & St. John, 2010, p. 4).
The third key construct offered by the majority of the textbooks (18 out of 23) is the concept that an organization has an internal and external environment. This construct is shown through the quotes above that alight upon the term external environment. In addition, the notion of external and internal environments is reinforced through the position that “environmental scanning (both external and internal)” (Wheelan & Hunger, 2010, p. 5) to uncover opportunities and threats is key to strategic management. Furthermore, the external environment constitutes “the forces that act outside of an organization” (Viljoen & Dann, 2003, p. 451), and managers need to consider an organization’s position “in the external environment” (Capon, 2008, p. 28).
This splitting of the environment into external and internal is, as De Wit and Meyer (2010a) highlight, the “first dichotomy” (p. 11) that managers face. Examples of this “splitting” in the reviewed books include that the “external environment influences firms as they seek strategic competitiveness” (Hitt et al., 2011, p. 36), but that it is largely “beyond the direct control of a single organization” (David, 2011, p. 43). This is in contrast to the “internal environment [which] is subject to far more control” (Witcher & Chau, 2010, p. 122) and is the source of “organizational strengths and weaknesses” (Barney & Hesterly, 2010, p. 8). Thus, while the goal of external analysis is to “understand opportunities and threats” (Hill & Jones, 2010, p. 39), internal analysis “focuses on resources and capabilities as internal sources of uniqueness that allow firms to beat the competition” (Carpenter & Sanders, 2009, p. 23).
With regard to sustainable development, the texts show a consistency in either their lack of acknowledgement and their narrow focus. As Table 2 shows, in the original list of 23 reviewed texts, only 1 textbook actually offers the Brundtland definition, 15 texts do not define the term at all, and the remaining 7 texts develop their own terms. Where texts have developed their own construct, invariably that construct is narrow and concerned with the so-called “natural environment” and an organization’s ability to “protect, mend and preserve” (David, 2011, p. 343) this environment. While the texts tend to recognize that “a number of companies are developing environmentally friendly policies” (Hitt et al., 2011, p. 49) as a result of increasing concern about the natural environment, in Grant’s (2010) view such concern has “pressured” (p. 458) businesses to adopt such strategies.
More description regarding areas of concern is offered by A. A. Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, and Strickland (2012) who argue that sustainability is “concerned with the relationship of a company to its environment and its use of natural resources, including land, water, air, plants, animals, minerals, fossil fuels and biodiversity” (p. 316). Nevertheless, what is clear in all those texts that discuss sustainability is that the focal subject is the firm, more specifically, “stakeholders” (Hubbard & Beamish, 2011, p. 12), although Hanson et al. (2011) does indicate that the natural environment is one of these stakeholders.
The above analysis focuses on the 2011 versions of the texts, but as indicated, the revision timeframes meant that a review of the latest editions of the texts was also carried out. The results of this review are highlighted in Table 2, which, in summary, shows that little has changed. None of the texts has changed its construct that splits the environment into internal and external master sets. With regard to sustainable development, however, a change is noticeable in two of the texts, with Hitt, Ireland, and Hoskisson (2015) now including the Brundtland definition of sustainable development, and Witcher and Chau (2014) discussing corporate sustainability as taking into account the “implications of an organization’s activities for the welfare of future generations” (p. 45).
Discussion
This study aimed to explore two key research questions: (a) How is the environment defined and as such conceptualized in strategy textbooks? and (b) Is sustainable development defined in strategy textbooks and if so how? To answer these questions a review was conducted of definitions and conceptualizations of the environment and sustainable development in 23 best-selling strategy textbooks in Australia and the United Kingdom in 2011. A list compiled from numerous sources accounted for course adoption rates and sales volumes. The review reveals a degree of isomorphism, particularly in how these textbooks offer a sclerotic, dehumanized, and commoditized view of the environment. They were also consistent in that they either did not provide a definition of sustainability, or provided a definition that was designed to suit narrow economic purposes. Unfortunately, this situation remains unchanged in the latest editions of the texts as of November 2015.
Strategy textbooks have been likened to recipe books (e.g., see Spender, 1989; Whittington, 1993), recipe books that belie a promise that through adherence to it the delights of a successful strategy will be realized (Spender, 1989; Whittington, 1993). In this regard, the review indicates that these textbooks all offer the same recipe, that is, a construct of the environment that lacks definitional exactitude, consists of multiple categories, and critically hinges around there being internal and external master sets where the external environment is separate and independently given because it is beyond direct control. Further, the external environment is constructed as a repository of opportunities and threats that need to be exploited or avoided to enable the economic prosperity of the organization.
While separating the environment into external and internal components partitioned by an organizational boundary facilitates analysis, this construct also objectifies, as the environment then becomes something to which we turn and respond (Hatch, 2011). In this context, the texts do not consider the environment as being “where we all live” (WCED, 1987, p. xi) and entwined with humans (Ingold, 2011). Similarly, they do not even contemplate that we may be living in a new geological age, the Anthropocene, where humanity shapes its surroundings.
Likewise, the internal environment is not posited in the texts as somewhere that individuals spend significant amounts of their life; rather it is advanced as a source of organizational strengths and weaknesses that needs to be matched to external opportunities and threats. Overall, the rationale in the texts is that the conceptions of environment, society, and humans are subsumed by and in thrall to the economics of the organization (McAfee, 2012). Similarly, the environment is not considered to be something that has intrinsic value, or with which we are simpatico (Bonnett, 2002). Rather, the environment is defined against the backdrop of the organization and something that should be attentive to its requirements (Bonnett, 2000, 2002, 2007). The implication of this rationale, then, is that the space in which we all live essentially evaporates as a meaningful concern beyond its economic utility to the reified organization. Consequently, what should be obvious becomes lost: that humans are constituted by the natural environment, the firm’s external environment is a place where we live, and our societies and neighborhoods may have value beyond serving economics. In such a construct, we are without context, and that our biology might be shaped and influenced by our surroundings, or our well-being by our society and neighborhood, are only meaningful relative to the economic performance of the organization.
It might be expected that the texts present a construct of the environment as a dehumanized place that is a separable collection of different categories, opportunities, threats, strengths, and weaknesses, all subject to a master dichotomy of internal and external that hinges around the organization. As Grant (2010) highlights, the emphasis of these books is not necessarily the realization of sustainable outcomes but rather the “identification of profit opportunities in the external environment of the firm” (p. 122). Thus, the rationale in these texts is the metaphysics of mastery and totalizing economics rather than human well-being, a key aspect of the sustainable development debate (Bonnett, 2013).
Also the splitting of the environment into four bounded domains (external opportunities and threats, and internal strengths and weaknesses) constrains the ability of the strategist to move beyond dichotomous understandings (Clegg, Carter, & Kornberger, 2004). In turn, this reinforces the notion of an organizational boundary, albeit none of the texts offer a clear identification of such a boundary. This dichotomy, however, has been consistently challenged as being false and of perpetuating a Cartesian dualism (e.g., see Gladwin et al., 1995; King, 1995; Shrivastava, 1995) that does not enable sustainable outcomes. This construct of the environment as “something outside and completely unrelated to the observer, except in a very narrow utilitarian sense” (Purser, Park, & Montuori, 1995, p. 1064) is an example of how our knowledge systems have outstripped our reality, the reality of systemic interconnections in a borderless world (Gladwin et al., 1995; King, 1995; Shrivastava, 1995) that is an “intrinsically dynamic, interconnected web of relations in which there are no absolutely discrete entities and no absolute dividing lines” (Eckersley, 2003, p. 49). It could be argued that this bounded, separable conceptualization is necessary given our continual desire for order out of chaos. For example, as Santos and Eisenhardt (2005) argue, “given bounded rationality and environmental complexity, sense making tends to crystallize into cognitive frames that reduce ambiguity and facilitate decision making” (p. 500), and as such it indicates how humans “tend toward static, isolated, one factor at a time analysis rather than dynamic whole systems appraisal” (Gladwin, Newburry, & Reiskin, 1997, p. 241). Consequently, a narrow, compartmentalized understanding of the environment such as that offered by textbooks is perhaps a necessary requirement in order to facilitate our own sense making, particularly as “purposeful classifications of objects, people and events are . . . [it can be argued] . . . an indispensable requirement for thinking about competition or strategy” (Bourgeois, 1980, p. 33). Furthermore, a move away from this type of construct will likely be difficult, perhaps because since Coase’s (1937) article on the nature of firm, organizational boundaries have become the central concern of organizational theory and analysis (e.g., see Dolfsma & Dannreuther, 2003; Hernes, 2004). Thus, the idea of a boundary has served organizational analysis for decades, particularly as it is argued that boundaries and their reproduction enable organizations to persist (e.g., see Hernes, 2004). However, as indicated, boundaries reinforce objectification and a dualism that limits the enabling of sustainable development, and to deconstruct such a dualism is an ongoing challenge for sustainability management academics.
Outside the above, it is possible that the textbooks’ conceptualization of the environment as being something separate could also be a challenge of the English language, in that it does not enable a move past dualistic implications. To explain, language allows us to detach ourselves and create symbolic distance (e.g., see Deleuze & Guattari, 2007; Newton, 2007), something that is ably demonstrated by the subject–verb structure of the English language that reinforces separation and reification. For example, Ingold (2011) outlines how an individual might typically say, “the wind blows” (p. 17). The structure of the phrase reinforces notions of there being a wind (subject) that is separate from the action of blowing, as if the blowing is a separate act upon the body that is the wind. Thus, English language structure and its semiotic underpinnings imply compartmentalization and separation. In this way, the language perpetuates a kind of fracture between subject and action (here, wind and blowing). To counter the fracturing, Ingold (2011) argues (perhaps self-evidently) that the “wind is its blowing” (p. 17). Here, the wind is the result of the blowing and thus there is no separation between subject and action. Indeed, the wind would not exist without the blowing. The wind is therefore the process, the action. Similarly, an organization and its environment are co-constitutive of each other, not independently given entities. However, the language used in this current study’s analysis, for example, “environment,” “society,” “economy,” deals in fractures that imply a separatist ontology. As such, while it could be argued that because of language structure the texts are benign, such a dismissal would mislead and fail to acknowledge the descriptions provided in the texts of the environment as being a source of economic opportunities for and threats to the organization. Further, if it is accepted that language is “both descriptive and constitutive of reality” (Tsoukas, 1991, p. 568) and a guide to how we think and act (Cornelissen, 2002, 2004, 2005; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff & Turner, 1987; Tsoukas, 1991, 1993), then language and sentence structures guide our cognitive representations and in turn our actions through enactment theory (e.g., see Hatch, 2011; Smircich & Stubbart, 1985). Thus, the constructs used in the texts are not neutral in their implications. Given this, if a sustainable strategy text is to be realized, a key component will need to be its use of language and sentence structures that imply surrounds that are not dehumanized but, rather, human-related (Bonnett, 2000).
Overall, the homogeneity in the prescriptions of the texts arguably reinforces a hegemony that is stabilized around the intellectual leadership of neoliberalism (Spence, 2009). It has been argued that neoliberalism has colonized business schools (e.g., see Cummings, 2005; Khurana, 2007;) and, as such, textbooks are tools that help to ensure a neoliberal arrangement of society, corporations, and political groups (Spence, 2009; Tulloch, 2013; Tulloch & Neilson, 2014). Thus, the colonization of the texts is necessary from the perspective of corporations. As Levy and Egan (2003) argue, corporations cannot dominate by virtue of their economic power alone; rather, their control rests on the consent of a wider group of actors and the “alignment of forces capable of reproducing the field” (p. 810). And this is something textbooks can enable. Tulloch (2013) argues the consensus in the West is that the environment is something “out there” to be used for the service of the firm and the economy. Indeed the reviewed texts reinforce this hegemony by prescribing what is knowable and thinkable, an aspect made clear in how they treat sustainability as just another category to be dealt with, only important in so much as it enables or hinders economic gains. Furthermore, the texts in the main either do not define sustainable development or do so on their own terms, reframing it as being a concern relative to the pursuit of economic gains, not as something to be considered for all humans across present and future generations. In such terms, sustainability is defined as just another category to deal with as opposed to something fundamental and core.
Grant’s (2010) textbook highlights that public pressure forces a firm to consider sustainability, with the corollary being that if the public are not concerned then neither should the firm be. This type of position not only reinforces a neoliberal capture of the texts but also panders to the simplistic. Enshrining the pursuit of profitable income as the central concern of organizations ensures simplicity in knowledge transfer to students, as organizational purpose becomes a bigger numbers game (more money), a mathematical construct of revenue and costs. What it is not is the messy, qualitative mix of values and judgments that are congruent with the challenges inherent to pursuing sustainable outcomes. In this light, and while the neoliberal capture is evident, it is unclear whether such simplistic constructs are actually about easing the passage of the educator by helping to ensure complexity does not enter the classroom.
Ultimately, neoliberal capture of the texts and the treatment of sustainability as a saddlebag issue help to ensure that only superficial change persists. Thus, as Spence (2009) argues, “we are left to experience the frustration of Gramsci’s paradox: the old order appears to be dying yet the new order cannot quite be born” (p. 224).
Nearly 30 years ago, Smircich and Stubbart (1985) observed that, “according to most strategic management literature, an organization . . . exists within an independently given environment” (p. 724). This current research indicates that little seems to have changed since that time. Further, that the reviewed textbooks fail in the main to even acknowledge sustainability or sustainable development in their indices indicates that there is still much work to be done. Thus, even though sustainability is a key issue for organizations (e.g., see Hopkins, 2009; Kiron et al., 2012; Kiron et al., 2013) and researchers have consistently called for the development of sustainable management theories over the past 20 years (e.g., see Gladwin et al., 1995; Starik & Kanashiro, 2013), the breakthrough of this issue and these theories into strategy textbooks does not seem to have been made. As indicated above, this is arguably because of the neoliberal capture of business schools (e.g., see Cummings, 2005; Khurana, 2007) and, in turn, university career progression systems that promote publishing in top-tier journals, and thus, a form of conservatism that does not encourage the risk taking that is associated with researching sustainability. In turn, this difficulty flows through to textbooks. In this context, it can be argued that there is nothing particularly novel or new about highlighting the limitations of the environmental construct or sustainability definitions offered in the best-selling strategic management textbooks. Since the publication of Smircich and Stubbart’s (1985) article, sustainable development has become popularized and the challenge of conventional organizational theories and their perpetuating a dualism that does not enable sustainable outcomes has been extensively discussed. Yet despite all this, textbooks do not seem to have moved forward in their constructs to enable corporate strategists, the key actors, to realize sustainable outcomes. What is clear is that we are still in the foothills of a sustainability management theory and the reflection of the near obvious regarding our mutual embedding in and inseparability from all that surrounds us (Starik & Kanahsiro, 2013).
A challenge here is how to progress. Notwithstanding that there are texts that cover sustainability more thoroughly in the broad area of business and society (e.g., see Stead & Stead; 1996), the implications of this current study are for nonacademics to ask these questions: Why is it that, given a radically changed context for the planet in the last 30 years or more, strategy texts do not reflect this change? Why do they still offer theories that rely on dualistic conceptions? Who or what is being served by such a state of affairs? Given the answers to such questions are almost obvious, academics need to ensure that the ideological underpinnings evident in the texts are at the very least deconstructed and made apparent, and not treated as if they are facts beyond discussion. In so doing academics can challenge the production line of consenting actors by asking students simple questions such as Where is the environment? What is the purpose of an organization? Where is the external and internal environment? How would any one individual know the boundary? Why do CEOs see the challenge of sustainability but this does not appear to be reflected in textbooks? How does considering the environment as a repository of opportunities and threats to the survival of the organization relate to the place where you and I, who have the natural environment inside of us, live? Can sustainability only be a profit concern or is it a more encompassing concept?
Outside of this form of questioning, sustainability management theorists need to keep developing new theories and where possible new strategy textbooks, not least because textbooks are considered to have a bona fide status as delivery systems of facts (Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991; Issitt, 2004). Further, strategy textbooks that do not perpetuate dualistic understandings are going to help ensure enhanced tension regarding accepted norms and what is knowable and thinkable. At this stage, such courses of action are viable and necessary if Kuhn’s (1996) arguments regarding the scientific structure of revolutions are accepted. As change will eventually occur once the existing paradigm can no longer absorb the mounting body of contrary evidence, the onus is on academics to ensure that until that time convention is continually challenged.
Endnote
Two main arguments inform this article: first, how the environment is constructed in textbooks as a separate place devoid of humans, a place from which humans stand apart, with no utility beyond its being exploited for economic opportunities and to avoid economic threats; and, second, how sustainable development is an undeveloped concern within the texts and/or is defined within an economic frame. A point of interest that arises from both of these arguments is how the author of this article defines the environment and sustainable development.
With regard to the environment, the simplest and most direct description is potentially that offered by the Brundtland report: “the environment does not exist as a sphere separate from human actions, ambitions, and needs, and attempts to defend it in isolation from human concerns have given the very word environment a connotation of naivety.” Thus, building on this, any reinforcement of the term environment is inappropriate; rather, given that we are in the age of the Anthropocene, texts should focus on concerns such as how an organization impacts the air that humans breathe and the water that humans drink. Such a focus will shift the current emphasis on the “environment” as a place isolated from human concerns to one that accentuates our articulation with our surroundings.
With regard to sustainable development, all definitions are problematic. However, again the simplest and easiest description is that offered by the Brundtland report: “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987, p. 8). The rationale for this choice of definition is that it clearly highlights humans as its central concern, and in discussing needs, although needs are malleable and temporal, it advances a wide area for debate that is beyond the economic alone, one that includes needs such as our well-being.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.