Improving sustainability: An international evolutionary framework

As emerging markets develop, foreign firms are being viewed less and less as providers of capital and/or technology, and more as integral parts of society in general, with much greater responsibilities that stem largely from their multinational roles. Recognizing these pressures and the increasing interaction between multinationals and societal institutions, we first briefly review the literature on role, stakeholder, and institutional theories, to develop a framework to improve our understanding of multinational sustainability. We next develop a three-stage model of the stages of societal development in general, and subsequently apply these stages to the development of China from 1978 to the present. We suggest that these changes have resulted in changing expectations of multinationals regarding their appropriate roles within China. We conclude by discussing lessons from our model for researchers, educators and practitioners.