Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being recognized as a critical tool when it comes to addressing the most pressing challenges facing modern industries, including the pursuit of sustainability. The use of AI is aiding businesses in navigating corporate sustainability challenges, but existing research lacks a comprehensive exploration of how corporations leverage AI to boost their sustainability. By exploiting an inductive concept-development approach and incorporating data from 24 companies, this study provides valuable insights into the role that AI plays in shaping organizational sustainability strategies, identifying operational enablement and technical capacity as key drivers of AI adoption for corporate sustainability. These drivers are incorporated into the technology, organization, and environment (TOE) framework alongside the strategic steps and capabilities necessary for organizations to effectively adopt and implement AI in the development of their sustainability strategies. Ultimately, this study proposes an integrative model for sustainability-oriented AI adoption that emphasizes the importance of aligning AI initiatives with organizations’ sustainability objectives in order to maintain a competitive advantage and drive progress. Correspondingly, it underscores the need for robust data management, system integration, and continual performance monitoring to reduce resistance to AI adoption allowing for the potential of AI to be fully harnessed in pursuit of sustainability. Furthermore, this study offers practical guidance by exploring the direct and indirect use cases of AI in corporate sustainability. The study concludes by highlighting potential avenues for future research in this evolving field.

Die aktuelle Literatur präsentiert umfangreiche Evidenz für die Verbindung zwischen Innovation und Nachhaltigkeit in Organisationen. Studien zeigen, dass das strategische Engagement von Unternehmen für Umweltfragen Prozessinnovationen fördert. Gleichzeitig zeigen andere Studien, dass Unternehmen mit innovativen Ideen die Herausforderung der nachhaltigen Transformation mit begrenzten Ressourcen und Know-how bewältigen können. Allerdings ist wenig darüber bekannt, wie Familienunternehmen Innovation managen können, um nachhaltiger zu werden. Zudem hat bisher keine Studie die Rolle des sozialen Kapitals bei der nachhaltigen Transformation von Familienunternehmen untersucht, obwohl es eine wesentliche Rolle in der allgemeinen Innovationsentwicklung und speziell in den idiosynkratischen Strukturen und einzigartigen Kulturen von Familienunternehmen spielt. Die vorliegende Studie zielt darauf ab, diese Lücken durch insgesamt 33 Interviews mit Experten und Managern von Familienunternehmen zu schließen. Unsere Studie trägt zu folgenden Punkten bei: (1) Wir adressieren die Lücke im aktuellen Verständnis der Forschung darüber, wie Familienunternehmen Innovationsansätze managen können, um Umwelt- und Sozialfragen effektiv anzugehen; (2) Wir weisen auf das erforderliche soziale Kapital der Innovation in den verschiedenen Stadien der Integration von Nachhaltigkeit in Unternehmen hin; (3) Wir zeigen praktische Implikationen für Familienunternehmen auf.

Most of prior multilevel studies on trust in inter-organizational relationships place much emphasis on specifying the level of analysis at which trust occurs (i.e. individual, group, or organization level) while overlooking the level of management, which refers to the hierarchical echelons within an organization. In addition, more often than not, the inter-organizational context where trust develops is not specified. Integrating both levels-of-analysis and levels-of-management perspectives, the dissertation iestigates the distinctive trust dynamics at two hierarchical echolons, to understand the cross-level interaction between these echelons which leads to the establishment of shared trust in the partner organization and the formation of organization-level trust, and to contemplate the factors that might lead to within-organization trust heterogeneity. The focus on the management level also enables to discern contingencies associated with the trust development process in horizontal alliances as opposed to vertical alliances. Adopting the case stud method, the alliance between KLM and Northwest Airlines is iestigated to illustrate key concepts in the developed theoretical framework and to buld a stronger case for future large-scale empirical studies.