Student Declaration of Authorship

Course code and name: Research Philosophy and Practice (C11BU)

Type of assessment: Coursework One - Reflective Report
“Corporate sustainability as a means of staying competitive in the
Coursework Title:
global market.”
Student Name:
Student ID Number:

Declaration of authorship. By signing this form:

• I declare that the work I have submitted for individual assessment OR the work I have
contributed to a group assessment, is entirely my own. I have NOT taken the ideas, writings
or inventions of another person and used these as if they were my own. My submission or
my contribution to a group submission is expressed in my own words. Any uses made within
this work of the ideas, writings or inventions of others, or of any existing sources of
information (books, journals, websites, etc.) are properly acknowledged and listed in the
references and/or acknowledgements section.

• I confirm that I have read, understood and followed the University’s Regulations on
plagiarism as published on the University’s website, and that I am aware of the penalties
that I will face should I not adhere to the University Regulations.

• I confirm that I have read, understood and avoided the different types of plagiarism
explained in the University guidance on Academic Integrity and Plagiarism

Student Signature (type your name):

Date:
Student Declaration of Authorship

Copy this page and insert it into your coursework file in front of your title page.
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Assignment: Coursework One - Reflective Report

Course: Research Philosophy and Practice (C11BU)

Word Count: 1382

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Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations 3

1. Selecting a topic 4

2. Identifying relevant literature 4

3. Writing a research question 6

4. Identifying a philosophical position and methodological orientation 7

Reference List 9

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List of Abbreviations

CS Corporate Sustainability
CSR Corporate Social Responsibility

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1. Selecting a topic

The topic the author has chosen is “Corporate sustainability as a means of staying competitive in
the global market.” A widely used definition for corporate sustainability (CS) comes from the
Brundtland report (1987) which defines CS as “development that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability for future generations to meet their own needs” (Montiel &
Delgado-Ceballos, 2014). This was the initial aspect of CS, where companies mainly cared about
how they could be more sustainable in a way that protected their surroundings along with their
own interests without having too much of an alternative motive (Montiel & Delgado-Ceballos,
2014). In more recent years, a far more targeted approach has developed where companies have
instituted stand alone Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) departments to be able to devise
strategies to keep their effects of production or action within a certain threshold, as intended by
the initial definitions. However, these departments have also been tasked with utilizing the
information collected for advancing the needs and goals of the company, be it financially or to
help them stand apart from the competition (Portney, 2020).

Due to his work in consulting for hospitality and retail, the author himself has seen a constant
need for brands to evolve and be more in-tune with their practices; be it by providing better and
more flexible working conditions to the staff or being always in competition to be the greenest or
most in-tune with the social issues of the day. Given said exposure, the topic of corporate
responsibility as a matter of staying competitive was of great interest and thought of as deserving
further exploration.

2. Identifying relevant literature

To assist in identifying relevant literature for the research of the topic at hand, the author devised
a selection of keywords that would yield the most accurate and relevant results. The given
keywords are “Corporate Sustainability”, “CSR”, “Competitive Strategies”, “Brand Awareness”

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and “Global Markets”. The first two keywords will assist in finding literature regarding the
general topic of sustainability, the following two (alone or in combination) will assist to narrow
down the scope to the issue of competition and diversification while the final keyword will assist
in providing the range and location of the research.

Utilizing the provided keywords, the author conducted a search of the available literature through
the use of a general google search followed by more targeted searches on academic journal
databases such as SAGE journals and Emerald Insight along with Google Scholar and Discovery.
For the most part, the sources were found utilizing the keywords and search queries however
some sources were additionally collected by utilizing works cited within the journal articles.
These sources would have been previously reviewed and deemed suitable for use as suggested by
Hart (2012) (Hart, 2012).

The following three references were found during the research of the literature:

Carcano, L. (2013) Strategic management and sustainability in luxury companies: The IWC case.
Journal of Corporate Citizenship. [Online] 2013 (52), 36-54.

Written by a senior professor at the SDA Bocconi School of Management and published in the
The Journal of Corporate Citizenship, this source provides an unbiased and in-depth case study
on four companies that have successfully executed CS strategies. Furthermore, it follows the
research classification indicators outline by Costa et al. (2012) by being peer reviewed, having
been conducted by a well-regarded university and yielding a very high quality reference analysis
(Colepicolo, 2015). Rowley (2002) additionally claims that case studies are particularly helpful
when undertaking preliminary research due to their real world applications (Rowley, 2002).

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Eco-Age (2020) Guides & Reports Archives - Eco-Age [online]. Available from: https://eco-
age.com/resources/category/guides-reports/ (Accessed 3 March 2022).

As a sustainability business strategy firm, this source will be very useful as they have a large
database of case studies, industry insights as well as guides/reports which will assist in the
development of the author’s report. The company’s highly experienced and educated
professionals have worked first hand with multiple corporations, hence providing high quality
data.

Montiel, I. & Delgado-Ceballos, J. (2014) Defining and measuring corporate sustainability.

Organization & Environment. [Online] 27 (2), 113-139.

This source will be useful for the literature review as it provides an overview of corporate
sustainability. It outlines multiple definitions and applications provided by renowned academics
and practitioners and it also provides recommendations on how to advance the field, which can
be very helpful when applying Alvesson and Sandberg’s (2010) gap spotting method for
research. Furthermore, it fits the outline set by Costa et al. (2012) quite well.

3. Writing a research question

Research questions help give direction as well as a specific outlook to research and based on the
manner that they are framed they reflect the angle and interest of the researchers, assist to yield
the desired results and reduce the chance of confusion or misconception (Kross & Giust, 2019).
However, having a strong research topic is not sufficient as this needs to be coupled with careful
articulation. Higgs and Llewellyn (1998) suggested that for a research question to be effective it

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should take into account the background of individuals taking part in the study, the author’s own
perspective on the subject, be based in existing theory and philosophy as well as be realistic
when it comes to practicality and feasibility of the task at hand (Higgs et al., 2009). It is therefore
clear as to why such high importance is put on developing a research question, as a lack of
thorough research or of consideration of the above mentioned factors could negatively impact the
initial study as well as the results.

Taking into consideration the reading of the literature as well as the sources presented in the
previous section, the author formulated three potential research questions within the field of
corporate sustainability:

1. To what extent can corporate sustainability help a company differentiate itself from its
competitors and stay competitive in the global market?

2. How can a strong corporate sustainability strategy help a luxury hotel operator
differentiate itself from its competitors and stay competitive in the global market?

3. What effect can a corporate sustainability strategy have on the brand image, identity and
profitability of a luxury goods manufacturer with a global presence?

4. Identifying a philosophical position and methodological orientation

Following the proposed topic along with the formulated research questions from the previous
sections, the more appropriate paradigm in the author’s opinion would be critical realism.
Critical realism allows for a mixed approach to research where multiple methods can be utilized,
keeping an objective approach while still being able to incorporate the concept of causality as
well as social structures (Bogna et al., 2020). Due to the more qualitative approach required for
the collection of information for some aspects of social responsibility, such as employee

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experience/wellbeing and client fulfillment, coupled with the need to collect empirical
quantitative data for strategy performance analysis and profitability aspects, a mix strategy is far
more useful. Furthermore, the use of case studies adds to the need for a more inclusive
philosophy. Zachariadis et at. (2010) argues that the use of critical realism can actually help
“deepen the practical understanding” of a certain topic by being less restricted than either
positivism or interpretivism on their own (Zachariadis et al., 2010).

Given that the chosen paradigm or meta-theory borrows from both positivism or interpretivism,
the other two paradigms are both similar and different in several ways. If the research were to
undertake the use of positivistic methods, it would be restricted to the use of purely quantitative
methods as its related data collection forms, such as questionnaires, surveys and statistics. It
would call for a standardization and the use of scientific methods to quantify all the data
collected, hence removing the human factor from the equation (Alharahsheh & Pius, 2020). If
the research were to undertake the use of interpretivist methods, it would be far more qualitative
utilizing data collection methods such as observation of the research subjects along with
interviews with open ended questions, leaving room for extrapolation and interpretation
(Alharahsheh & Pius, 2020). A good summarizing statement would be that both sides would be
too defined and without room for compromise being either too far to the scientific or humanistic
sides respectively, when both are needed to study the modern workings of corporate
sustainability.

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Reference List

Alharahsheh, H. & Pius, A. (2020) A Review of key paradigms: Positivism vs Interpretivism.

Global Academic Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences. [Online] 2 (3), 39-43.

Bogna, F. et al. (2020) Critical realism and constructivism: Merging research paradigms for a
deeper qualitative study. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An
International Journal. [Online] 15 (4), 461-484.

Carcano, L. (2013) Strategic management and sustainability in luxury companies: The IWC case.
Journal of Corporate Citizenship. [Online] 2013 (52), 36-54.

Colepicolo, E. (2015) Information Reliability for Academic Research: Review and

recommendations. New Library World. [Online] 116 (11/12), 646-660.

Eco-Age (2020) Guides & Reports Archives - Eco-Age [online]. Available from: https://eco-
age.com/resources/category/guides-reports/ (Accessed 3 March 2022).

Hart, C. (2012) Doing a literature search: A Comprehensive Guide for the Social Sciences. Los
Angeles, California: Sage.

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Higgs, J. et al. (2009) Writing qualitative research on practice. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense
Publishers.

Kross, J. & Giust, A. (2019) Elements of research questions in relation to Qualitative Inquiry.
The Qualitative Report. [Online]

Montiel, I. & Delgado-Ceballos, J. (2014) Defining and measuring corporate sustainability.

Organization & Environment. [Online] 27 (2), 113-139.

Portney, P. R. (2020) The (not so) new corporate social responsibility: An empirical perspective.
Review of Environmental Economics and Policy. [Online] 2 (2), 261-275.

Rowley, J. (2002) Using case studies in Research. Management Research News. [Online] 25 (1),
16-27.

Sandberg, J. & Alvesson, M. (2010) Ways of constructing research questions: Gap-spotting or

problematization? Organization. [Online] 18 (1), 23-44.

Zachariadis, M. et al. (2010) Exploring critical realism as the theoretical foundation of mixed-
method research: evidence from the economics of IS innovations [online]. Available
from: https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/wp1003.pdf (Accessed 3
March 2022).

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