{"id":128437,"date":"2021-06-30T09:36:17","date_gmt":"2021-06-30T07:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=128437"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:25:42","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:25:42","slug":"why-employees-in-multinationals-want-sustainable-development-and-why-this-is-often-not-achieved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2021\/06\/30\/why-employees-in-multinationals-want-sustainable-development-and-why-this-is-often-not-achieved\/","title":{"rendered":"Why employees in multinationals want sustainable development and why this is often not achieved"},"content":{"rendered":"

In big companies, employees do engage with sustainable innovation, but their surroundings often fail to work with them. According to Thijs Geradts, the million-dollar question<\/em> is: how do you resolve that? Last week, he was awarded a PhD for his thesis Moving Beyond the Why and What Question: How Corporations Achieve Sustainable Development<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s nice and certainly important that all these employees are trying to get something done in their organisation, but actually it\u2019s a symptom of something that doesn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Thijs Geradts had a digital PhD defense. <\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLevien Willemse<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

What is your thesis about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI studied the \u2018how\u2019 behind sustainable development in corporations. We know a lot about why businesses should become more sustainable and what they can do. People use terms like sustainable business model innovation <\/em>and circular economy, but if you really study the literature, you see that there is relatively little attention for the \u2018how\u2019 question. That\u2019s really the million-dollar question: if businesses want to become more sustainable, how do they go about it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can optimise existing processes or radically innovate by developing new products or services. Particularly in the case of radical innovation, you can use a social problem as the starting point, where lots of profit and impact can be gained. For businesses, that is very high on the agenda. But it is also the hardest to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did you conduct your research?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI interviewed a total of two hundred executives, senior managers and mid-level managers at seven multinationals: Unilever, Philips, Johnson & Johnson, Akzo Nobel, Interface, UBS and Pearson. There, I studied how enterprising employees develop and shape sustainable innovative solutions and ideas in big organisations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next angle was what role senior managers play to actually move from a sustainable business strategy to sustainable products and services. Another question was how an environment can be created at organisation level which stimulates sustainable business model innovation<\/em>, in other words innovations in how you create value for the client and deliver and retain value as an organisation in a sustainable way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>

Thijs Geradts at home at the day of his PhD defense <\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOwn archive<\/span>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>

What were your main conclusions?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cActually, you see that if a business wants to become more sustainable, the existing processes and systems do not stimulate sustainable strategy. For employees, it is therefore always a struggle to manoeuvre through the organisation. It is therefore important to structure your organisation at all levels in such a way that sustainable innovation flourishes, institutionally, strategically, and operationally.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also saw that, if you are engaged in social innovation for the over four billion people who live on less than five dollars a day, for example, as an employee in a big multinational you can harness emotions. You need a socially feel good vibe<\/em> because such innovations are often difficult to sell internally. That\u2019s because you are working for people who don\u2019t have much to spend and in developing countries, you may encounter more corruption or difficult legislation and regulations. Businesses prefer to sell products to rich Dutch or Americans, they aren\u2019t familiar with that environment. Employees can harness emotions to ask help from colleagues, guide the product through the organisation and keep the product alive if it is not initially profitable.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did you get involved with this subject?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI got the inspiration during my studies when I saw Feike Sijbesma from DSM give a presentation about cattle feed that they\u2019d developed, which resulted in cattle emitting over 25 percent less methane. In terms of pollution, a cow is the same as a BMW, so that\u2019s a huge difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been interested in social entrepreneurship; people who establish a company to resolve a social or ecological problem. However, I noticed that big companies were relatively less engaged in that, despite its huge potential: they have the resources, the power and their chains extend to all corners of the world. As I learned from Sijbesma\u2019s presentation, companies were engaged but little was written about it. From that idea, I started at Nyenrode. After a year, I applied to be a lecturer in Rotterdam where I was able to do my PhD.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

\n\t\t\n\t\t
\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Read more<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t