Strategic Sustainability Management for Enhancing Corporate Value: in the context of Korean Business Circles

In line with the growing importance of Corporate Sustainability Management (CSM) in business circles, the linkages between CSM, corporate values and performance is becoming increasingly higher on the agenda both for internal corporate management purposes and for external relations for corporations. To deal with this subject, academic researcher, practitioners and international organizations have elaborated schemes and tools designed to assist corporate leaders to make progress in CSM. These schemes and tools are mainly focused on the collection of evidence and development of recommendations for action. This process is supported by usage of newly developed SD, coaching tools and valuation processes that are, designed to help the businesses to make the business case for CSM. Among the methodologies, this dissertation author relied mainly on collecting evidence and broad recommendations based upon action‘ methodologies; since it is very important to understand the relationships between strategic sustainability management and corporate values. In particular, the author shows that this approach is a sound way to work within the Korean business circle considering its lack of data and limited CSM experiences. This dissertation author identified and evaluated the key factors of CSM, based upon the definition developed to answer Research Question 1(What factors are generally considered for strategic corporate sustainability in Korean business circles?). The author then performed empirical studies on three Korean companies to obtain insights into the effects of the selected Korean company‘s strategies for enhancing their competitivity. SWOT analyses were performed to ascertain the qualitative effects of the companies‘ CSM programs. This process helped the author to obtain answers to Research Question 2(Is the direction of corporate sustainability strategy in Korean companies appropriate for sustainable growth of the companies?). In addition, the author analyzed whether business activities of the three Korean companies actually contribute to their value from CSM perspectives (Research Question 3: Why have Korean companies tried to integrate sustainability into corporate sustainability?).