The Association between Sustainability Performance Management Goals and Organisational Performance

Abstract

Purpose: This paper identifies the sustainability performance management goals that Australian Companies use and their association with organisational performance. Design/methodology/approach: This study involved a questionnaire survey administered to Senior Level Managers of medium to large Australian companies. To identify their main sustainability performance management goals, a principal component factor analysis was conducted to reduce a total of 35 items related to sustainability performance management goals to 7 key sustainability performance management goal factors - environmental, new product innovation, customer acquisition and retention, information systems capability, employee welfare and community engagement, operational profitability, and organisational profitability. To determine which of these sustainability performance management goal factors were significantly associated with organisational performance, each of these factors was regressed against five single-item dependent variables of Customer Satisfaction Performance, Employee Satisfaction Performance, Sales from New Products Performance, Profit from Operations Performance and Environmental Budget Allocation Performance. Findings/Results: Results reveal that environmental, new product innovation, customer acquisition and retention, and information systems capability goals were positively associated with new product sales. Environmental, information systems capability, and employee welfare and community engagement goals were found to be positively associated with environmental budget allocations. Also, customer acquisition and retention, employee welfare and community engagement, and organisational profitability goals were found to positively influence customer satisfaction. Finally, information systems capability and employee welfare and community engagement goals were found to be positively associated with employee satisfaction.