Reconciling Analytics with Holistic Thinking in Business Sustainability Decision-Making

One of the core questions with respect to business sustainability is how managerial decision-makers in organizations can be encouraged to make more sustainable choices. However, relevant decision-making dynamics, including the role of managerial values and attitudes, are still poorly understood. In prior research, the focus on firm practices as proxies for managers’ values and preferences has left the relevant antecedents of business sustainability decision-making largely unaddressed. In building on Keeney’s value-focused thinking approach, this study provides a framework for capturing managers’ sustainability values systematically and precisely, which allows for their integration into formal analysis of business sustainability decision-making. Further, we also examine whether the prevalence of holistic thinking in organizational decision-making paradigms influences managers’ sustainability values. The reason for the focus on holistic thinking is that the concept of business sustainability is grounded in a holistic paradigm that emphasizes simultaneous interrelationships between environmental, social, and economic aspects of sustainability. We use data from a survey with executive managers in the procurement and supply chain functions based in Australia to test our hypotheses, and to establish a typology of managerial sustainability values with reference to decision-making for business sustainability.