Impact of national culture on company decision-making when implementing sustainability initiatives.

Abstract

Increasing issues of climate change and society, in general, have increased the importance of sustainability and that is why governments, organizations, and people are focusing on it more than ever. Similarly, international companies are intending to implement sustainability initiatives in different countries they operate but the differences in national culture in a country can affect their decision-making process. For instance, unfavorable national cultural values in a sustainability context result in weak sustainability orientation of the public and employees and it negatively affects all the stages of the decision-making process when a company is implementing sustainability initiatives. As a result, even if a company intends to solve a bigger sustainability-related problem they have to limit its ambition because of the unfavorable culture of a country. Whereas favorable cultural values result in strong orientation as it positively affects the decision-making process. Therefore, even if a company is not ambitious, the strong sustainability orientation of the public and its employees will push the company to be more ambitious. However, unfavorable cultural values can be overcome by increasing awareness and education about the importance of sustainability and how it can improve people's lives. This increase in awareness will result in a strong sustainability orientation despite belonging to unfavorable cultural values. Therefore, if a company is struggling with the implementation of sustainability initiatives it should increase awareness among its customers and its employees. Moreover, the companies need to include people who demonstrate strong sustainability orientation in the decision-making so the decisions they make can help a company achieve its sustainability objective.