eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

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Research objectives: This study aims at discovering 1) at what stage manufacturing companies are in their sustainability implementation on a global level, 2) whether these companies can benefit financially from sustainability implementation, and 3) are there differences both in the level of sustainability implementation and its financial implications between large and medium-sized manufacturing companies.

Academic background and methodology: The study consists of a literature review and a data analysis. The dataset used in the analyses was obtained from the sixth International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS VI) conducted in fall 2013. The international dataset originally consisted of 931 responses from 22 countries and involved manufacturing companies belonging to ISIC codes 25 to 30. The main methods of analysis used in this thesis are structural equation modeling and Mann-Whitney U test.

Main findings and conclusions: 1) Most of the studied manufacturing companies had started their sustainability journey, yet only a minority had reached a high level of implementation 2) There is a significant positive relationship between overall sustainability performance and financial performance of manufacturing companies, yet 3) the dataset did not allow to test whether this relationship is similar for both large and medium-sized manufacturing companies. 4) In addition, medium-sized manufacturing companies seem to receive less external sustainability related pressure and their implementation level of sustainability management systems and programs is lower than that of larger manufacturing companies. Yet, there was no significant difference between medium-sized and large manufacturing companies when it came to the level of operational sustainability performance.