Business sustainability through successful integration of marketing and operations

Business sustainability is central to the strategic decision making processes of every modern organisations as it helps managers to man- age risks that fall within the scope of their business practices (Olson, Slater, & Hult, 2005; Peteraf, 1993; Porter, 1991; Tonelli, Evans, & Taticchi, 2013). Also, commitment of an organisation towards sustain- ability reflects in the scope of activities its managers perform to fulfil their business related obligations and requires consideration of specific issues related to sustainability by them (Ratnayake, 2012; Sagebien & Whellams, 2010; Spence & Perrini, 2009). While researchers have gen- erally explored the favourable and unfavourable impact of sustainability initiatives on performance of a business (Frey, 2001; Gupta & Kumar, 2012; Thomas, 2004), practising managers have expressed concerns regarding the management of complex and possibly competing basic requirements of sustainability i.e. care for environment, economic sta- bility and social consciousness. This is so because, pursuing sustainability agenda through only one of its different facets has not resulted into great benefits for their organisation (Mancebo, 2013). Researchers have recommended a simultaneous focus on all the aspects of sustain- ability with synchronised adoption of sustainability initiatives by differ- ent domains of a business (Seliger, Kim, Kernbaum, & Zettl, 2008; Thai, 2008). Academic knowledge in this area also suggests that economic stability and social consciousness together, creates shareholder value (Collins, Lawrence, Pavlovich, & Ryan, 2007) and incorporation of care for the environment, with the other two, broadens the scope of sustain- ability to create greater value for stakeholders (Lloyd-Walker & Walker, 2011). Individually, economic stability relates to sensitivity towards sales, profit margins, taxes, working capital and assets (Huang & Rust, 2011); environmental consciousness emphasises on minimisation of waste, recycling of natural resources, reduction of material used, consumption of energy and prevention of pollution (Glavi? & Lukman, 2007) and social consciousness focuses on impact of activities of a firm on advantages it receives such as reputation in a competitive marketplace (Carroll & Shabana, 2010).