The conference brought together academics, practitioners, entrepreneurs, and policy-makers to debate new ideas, research, and critical issues of concern in sustainability. The topics discussed refl ect on widely held concerns about how to interpret the implications of sustainability for business practice and also give particular insight into how issues are perceived in Australasia. It explored different methods to ensure the social, environmental, economic, and cultural aspects of sustainability are more meaningful to our understanding of management and organisations so that the pressing issues of sustainability can be discussed in an inclusive manner in order to advance the sustainability debate.
The papers in this Special Issue are relevant in sustainability research, focusing on issues that are fundamental, topical, and needed at this stage of the debate. More importantly, these papers seek to provide a current state of thinking, trends, and assessment in sustainability debate.
The fi rst paper in this issue, by Gabriel Eweje -A Shift in Corporate Practice? Facilitating Sustainability Strategy in Companies -examines managers' actual sustainability perceptions and practices. The paper reports on an empirical study carried out in New Zealand in which 15 large companies were interviewed in 2009 about their sustainability strategy and practice. Results reveal that companies that participated in the study are keen to demonstrate that sustainability is integral to their policy and have various projects and initiatives to support their position and commitment. However, he questions that, with lack of 'organised' stakeholder pressure on corporations in New Zealand to showcase their sustainability attributes, with very few exceptions, the question of what really motivates sustainability projects/initiatives is compelling.
In the second paper -Integral Responsibilities for a Responsive and Sustainable Practice in Organization and Management -Wendelin M. KΓΌpers discusses the potential of a responsive, responsible, and hence sustainable orientation integral to practice. He starts by looking at basic ideas about a phenomenology of responsiveness, and then critically examines the notion of responsibility. Based on an integral framework, different fi elds of application of responsibility for organisation and its interrelation are presented in this article. The subject focus of this paper is that Sustainability can only be realised if organisations, their members, and civic society learn to co-create, design, and practice responsible inter-practices and inter-relationships.
Kate Kearins and Martin Fryer, in the third paper -Relating Sustainability Theory to Practice at Auckland Airport: An Engaged Scholarship Endeavour Involving Studentsreport the results from an engaged scholarship endeavour involving an academic, a practitioner, and students. The paper describes salient interactions which sought to inform Auckland Airport's sustainability planning efforts, and which also provided research and learning opportunities. The authors found that novel ideas were somewhat diffi cult to generate when the company was already deemed to be doing well; external stakeholders were not so willing to engage; sustainability performance reporting did not always fi nd a ready audience; and external awareness of the company's sustainability initiatives was