Development of Corporate Sustainability in Enterprises through the Application of Selected Practices and Tools

Abstract

Background and Purpose: The research paper identifies practices and tools to support corporate sustainability concept that can lead to increased business competitiveness in a dynamically developing business world. The pur­pose of the paper is to provide insight into the practices and tools of corporate sustainability applied by the Slovak industrial enterprises and which barriers do exist. Moreover, the aim is also to identify factors influencing the appli­cation of tools such as company ownership, importance of sustainability concept, and company vision. Design/Methodology/ Approach: In order to obtain the necessary data an online questionnaire was used. The sample of enterprises was selected on the basis of the enterprise size and the industry focus (n = 336). The following statistical methods were used 1) one-way ANOVA, 2) the Kruskal-Wallis test, and 3) the Wilcoxon rank-sum test. Results: This paper revealed some key insights: 1) foreign-owned enterprises are better at application of sustain­ability practices and tools, 2) still quite a few enterprises attribute the importance to the concept, 3) the existence of barriers, particularly in the form of a lack of financial resources, 4) one of the key drivers of sustainability is enterprise vision. Conclusion: The paper created and analyzed quite a comprehensive list of practices and tools suitable for enter­prises in Slovakia. There was an effort to find out point at the ways how enterprises contribute to sustainable devel­opment. It was also found out that they attach importance to vision as a major trigger for the application of the tools. Keywords: Corporate sustainability, Practices, Tools, Barriers, Company vision