Enhancing Sustainability Management: Drivers , Challenges, and Opportunities in Austrian Social Service and Healthcare Non-Profits

• In Event: Sustainability management: Drivers, challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Over time, Austrian social service (SS) and healthcare (HC) nonprofit organizations (SSHC-NPOs) have embraced managerial attitudes (Meyer & Simsa, 2014; Meyer, Buber & Aghamanoukjan, 2012; Eikenberry & Drapal Kluver, 2004), while also fulfilling their social or societal benefit missions (Sætre, 2022; Mikołajczak, 2020). As hybrids, SSHC-NPOs must navigate a complex landscape of institutional logics (business, social welfare and government logic). Combining the business logic with the social welfare logic in SSHC-NPOs has been a challenging task for quite a while. This is getting even more complicated because in recent years, SSHC-NPOs are increasingly confronted by legitimacy-providing stakeholders to demonstrate their stewardship for the natural environment as a consequence of the climate crisis. In the European Union, there is a strong legislative pressure on a green transition (e.g., European Green Deal, EU-Taxonomy Regulation and the 2022 Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive). How SSHC-NPOs, integrate the quest for ecological sustainability into their sustainable management (SM) is an emerging topic. That also includes how they balance financial, social and ecological sustainability matters.
Against this background, the paper analyses the main external and internal drivers of large Austrian SSHC-NPOs of their SM engagement as well as the main challenges and opportunities. The empirical part of the paper is based on 22 expert interviews with CEOs and sustainability managers, which were conducted between September 2022 and February 2023.
The findings show, that the main external drivers for SSHC-NPOs’ SM engagement are the climate crises, EU regulations, societal awareness and expectations of key stakeholders. The key opportunities of SM engagement include strategic positioning, employer branding and awareness building. Employer branding was seen as the biggest opportunity in this context. Economic viability and the organizational change process are considered to be the biggest challenges. Overall, the findings show that the awareness for ecological matters is high but the implementation of ecological sustainability matters is driven by a highly pragmatic approach. There is a clear priority on social and financial sustainable matters.
Our contribution to the academic field is twofold. Firstly, to our knowledge, the paper is the first to assess the readiness of SSHC-NPOs for the 2022 Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which is part of the European Green Deal initiatives. So far, the integration of ecological matters is still in an early stage. The highly pragmatic approach towards ecological matters indicates that the three pillars of sustainability (ecological, social, financial) are not addressed in a balanced way. Secondly, the paper also analyses how Austrian SSHC-NPOs navigate in a complex landscape of institutional logics in the light of the necessity to improve the integration of ecological matters in their SM practices. With a clear priority on the business logic as well as on the social welfare logic the SSHC-NPOs stewardship towards the natural environment is so far only referred to at the level of organizational norms and values, showing that Austrian SSHC-NPOs start their roadmap towards ecological matters within the cognitive integration.

References

Anheier, H. K. (2014). Nonprofit organizations: Theory, management, policy. Routledge.
Eikenberry, A. M., & Kluver, J. D. (2004). The marketization of the nonprofit sector: Civil society at risk?. Public administration review, 64(2), 132-140.
Meyer, M., Buber, R., & Aghamanoukjan, A. (2013). In search of legitimacy: Managerialism and legitimation in civil society organizations. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 24, 167-193.
Meyer, M., & Simsa, R. (2014). Developments in the third sector: The last decade and a cautious view into the future. Modernizing democracy: Associations and associating in the 21st century, 203-215.
Mikołajczak, P. (2020). Social enterprises’ hybridity in the concept of institutional logics: Evidence from Polish NGOs. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 31(3), 472-483.
Sætre, H. S. (2022). How hybrid organizations respond to institutional complexity: the case of Norway. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 1-12.

Authors

• Dorothea Greiling, Johannes Kepler University Linz

• Sandra Stoetzer, Johannes Kepler University Linz

• Philumena Bauer, Johannes Kepler University