Conclusion: business sustainability is beyond just lasting

In 2008 the world experienced one of the biggest economic crises since the Great Depression – a period now infamously known as the era of the global financial crisis. This period, tainted with financial mega-scandals, has come to symbolise the height of human greed, selfishness, corporate fragility, chaos and disrespect for public well-being. The capricious capitalism and market failure was attacked from many sides. It was during this period that the stage of this book is set. Our research explored the depths and heights of business sustainability under globalisation and attempted to capture the significant moments when the crisis rocked corporate economies and boardrooms around the world.

The research was undertaken in response to a call from various corporate communities. The focus groups, interviews and case studies generated helped gather enormous insights on the topic for present and future generations to witness and act upon in terms of reinforcing business sustainability. The research helped in reinforcing, be it in such times of distress or under normal circumstances, the choice to succeed or fail which remains with the organisation. Furthermore, since the corporate atmosphere in this globalised world is so wired and connected, the cases from Singapore can be seen as representative of the patterns of corporate practices that exist in other parts of the world, albeit while carrying an Asian flavour.

The first chapter introduced the specific aims of the book, which were to highlight the perceptions of organisations on business sustainability; the challenges, issues, risk management strategies and measures these organisations used in trying to sustain themselves. Whether organisations have the courage to lead and be unique or have a ‘herd mentality’ – a tendency to be influenced by peers to adopt certain behaviours, follow trends and are engulfed in institutional isomporphism – is one question. DiMaggio and Powell (1983: 149) define institutional isomorphism as: ‘a constraining process that forces one unit in a population to resemble other units that face the same set of environmental conditions’ that result from coercive, mimetic and normative mechanisms. Whether organisations value ethics or believe in attaining their goals by hook or by crook is another question we deal with. Chapter 1 finally sets the context of this book for its readers and notes the rationale of organising the book in the way it is.

In the second chapter the book explored what business sustainability looks like under globalisation; whether globalisation has helped induce and or increase corporate fragility. It discusses the perspective that if we agree to the fact that an organisation is a living entity, can organisations then learn lessons of longevity and leave their footprints beyond their karmic phase or mere physical existence? After dealing with that idea, we then broadly explain the factors affecting sustainability of businesses while diagrammatically listing the key components of TBLs. How organisations can assess their sustainability positions by using metrics and measurements of business sustainability is also introduced. At the end of this chapter we concluded that more often than not organisations tend to focus just on being economically prosperous, thereby having a short-term vision which ultimately leads to premature organisational mortality.

In the third chapter we developed a medley of individual cases and vignettes of organisations and included their experiences and apprehensions regarding business sustainability. The cases exhibit the varied extent to which these organisations are aware of the TBLs and their respective actions. Diverse cases of SMEs, VWOs, large local firms and MNCs operating in Singapore were provided. Organisations’ responses to the concept of business sustainability were varied, ranging from strengthening their internal processes, focusing on employees and investing in product innovation, to cutting costs, closing units and reducing balance sheet losses.

The fourth chapter voiced the key challenges faced by organisations during the post-2008 financial crisis and economic recession. This was in terms of: core values which organisations adhered to try to sustain; reasons cited for unsustainability; measures taken; risk management strategies adopted and future challenges identified. As listed in the chapter’s tables, the key challenges faced by organisations were how, and by how much, to cut costs and how to handle situations that occurred due to budget freezes on the client side, ensuring cash flow and matters related to employee engagement and continuity of trust between employer and employees. Interestingly, poor leadership was pointed out as the key factor responsible for corporate unsustainability. Yet cost-management and control were the primary focus of these organisations during the time of crisis. These findings raised some key, but simple, questions: When times are good does the corporate sector ignore the factors responsible for business excellence and in turn invite situations that shake up sustainability? Are the talent and leadership pipelines adequate enough to share future responsibilities? If talent management is unanimously identified as the key future challenge, what are organisations doing to try to help limit and overcome this? What we found was that business sustainability still seems to be a labyrinth for many organisations, while a distinct imbalance in the TBL factors and ‘the planet dimension’ is yet to get up speed.

The fifth chapter discussed the above-mentioned scenarios and illustrated innovative sustainability initiatives adopted by some of the organisations we researched. Based on the insights gathered, a framework of business sustainability was charted in an effort to guide organisations’ thought processes and help them to achieve greater business sustainability. Through this chapter it was further reinstated that the ability for organisations to succeed or fail lies deep within their willingness to perceive the situation and act accordingly.

While penning these chapters we were constantly confronted with the fact that sustainability is a balancing act to be judiciously executed. The essence of sustainable development is perhaps well represented through this quote: ‘The genius of sustainable development is to finesse the perceived conflict between economy and environment and between the present and future’ (Board of Sustainable Development 1995: 13). In other words, it can be concluded that more often than not business sustainability is a choice that germinates in corporate boardrooms, spreads across organisations through clear vision and subsequent action and is a phenomenon that is driven by human greed, lust for power and other inter-as well as intra-organisational political plays. Therefore, sustaining a business will also mean balancing power struggles and conflicts within the organisation. Business sustainability is beyond just lasting!

In short, our research and book have uncovered and analysed a plethora of ways organisations of different sizes and sectors have tried to maintain business sustainability, and what they see as some of the future challenges to this. Interestingly, many of the challenges, measures, strategies and future challenges mentioned by our organisations had a very strong HRM aspect. These areas ranged from improved employment engagement and communication and work-life balance to better talent management and succession planning as well as leadership and leadership development. We can see these in Table 6.1.

What these results also seem to indicate is that the critical role of HR in organisations remains unabated and the management of people and people issues would seem to be becoming even more important as a result of the impacts of the post-2008 economic crisis. Indeed, some important issues, such as ethics and CSR, can be colonised by HR professionals (Rowley 2010b). Furthermore, it indicates that despite a common narrow view that HRM is less important and simply an implementer of decisions made elsewhere in the organisation, the opposite may be the case. That is, it is an opportunity for HRM to show how it adds value to the organisation and can prevent it from hitting the rocks and sinking.