Zbornik radova Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci : časopis za ekonomsku teoriju i praksu (Jun 2018)

Testing sustainable value added as an integrative measure of business sustainability

  • Dejan Miljenović

DOI
https://doi.org/10.18045/zbefri.2018.1.155
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 36, no. 1
pp. 155 – 181

Abstract

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New analytical approaches used for a holistic/integral evaluation of the company created value advocate implementation of business models based on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) sand the Triple Bottom Line (TBL). Owing to the fact that CSR and TBL are strategically oriented on business objectives of sustainable development, especially in managing eco-efficiency, this type of value is being named – Sustainable Value Added (SVA). However, since previous research and constructive criticism of SVA models have not been adequately tested by applying the appropriate econometric models so far, in this paper author introduces applicable empirical testing of the SVA sensitivity on the Triple Bottom Line aspects: 1) financial, 2) environmental and 3) social business results. The aim of this paper is to conduct research on SVA as an integrative measure for quantitative assessment of company contributions to the long-term sustainable development. The author also advocates an important thesis regarding the extraction of the TBL data, implicating that this process validates only when a relevant number of companies, across different benchmarks, regularly publishes annual CSR reports. Such publishing ensures transparent and unified TBL data essential for SVA analysis. Research methodology rests on the comparison of SVA with a traditional economic measure of Value Added (VA) in terms of their contributions to business sustainability. Empirical testing indicates significant differences between the SVA and VA regarding their financial, environmental and social sustainability effects. Testing empirically confirms SVA as an integrative measure for sustainable business contributions. This ensures the presentation of complete and standardized data of triple results required for SVA analysis. Additional objective in this context was to investigate eco-efficiency of a specific benchmark as a sustainability precondition, measured by using the SVA.

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