Managing the Transition to a Sustainable Enterprise

Lessons from Frontrunner Companies by Rob van Tulder, Rob Tilburg, Mara Francken and Andrea Rosa. How do businesses make the business case for sustainability? A new and revised English edition of an award-nominated Dutch book reveals the decision-making processes and perceptions of CEOs and middle managers that shape their organisation’s transition to sustainable business. Rob van Tulder, Professor of International Business-Society Management, and his co-authors worked with 20 high-profile companies in the Netherlands to write Managing the Transition to a Sustainable Enterprise. Lessons from Frontrunner Companies.

The Dutch version of the book was published last year and was shortlisted for the ‘best management book of the year 2012’ award. Now, the official English version makes this work accessible to an international audience. The book will appear this autumn and is published by London-based Earthscan at Routledge. Earthscan is the world’s leading publisher in the field of sustainability.

This book combines practice and theory to provide a management perspective on the ‘business case’ for sustainability, and describes the Dutch practice to an international audience. Together, the four authors researched for several years to produce the book, which offers insights into real-life transition processes towards sustainability.

It’s aimed at managers as well as students at undergraduate and postgraduate level, in vocational and academic institutions. It identifies phases and attitudes toward sustainability through business cases and related business models. It also gives in-depth analysis and insights into:

existing literature and theoretical concepts
business cases for sustainability
barriers to sustainability - behavioural characteristics
more than 70 ‘tipping points’
approaches to shaping stakeholder dialogue
effective engagement of stakeholders in each phase of transition
how companies move through the phases towards higher levels of sustainability
insights of employees of the 20 companies whether the business case was really achieved
identification of successful interventions.