Message from the guest editors

Abstract

The last couple of decades have witnessed the growing interest of the academic literature in the conciliation of firm financial performance and growth with social and environmental concerns. Firms face increasing pressure from both shareholders and stakeholders towards adopting sustainable practices. Regulatory impositions, potential competitive advantages, legitimacy and ethical concerns all point to the integration of social, environmental, diversity and community dimensions into firms’ daily life. At a time of huge changes and uncertainties in the internal and external factors that determine firm performance, sustainable development challenges must be at the forefront of business decisions. Nevertheless, the integration of those dimensions surely has effects on firms’ operating costs, margins and market positioning. The existent literature does not provide us with an unambiguous answer regarding the sign and significance of the relationship between variables proxying sustainability and different market- or accounting-based performance measures. Therefore, it continues to be relevant to study the relationship between sustainability and financial performance. The aim of this Special Issue is to present an updated set of studies, theoretical ideas and methodological developments dealing with the sustainability–financial performance nexus. This Special Issue will include, but is not limited to, the following topics: i) implications of adopting sustainable management practices to financial performance; ii) presentation of good practices in sustainable management that enhance financial performance; iii) implications of different contexts, namely in terms of corporate governance, market structure, firm dimension and geographical, cultural and gender aspects or others; and iv) explore potential non-linear, bidirectional and moderating effects in the relationship between sustainability and financial performance. [...]