Keys to a Sustainable International Management Oriented to the Main Global Needs

Introduction

Today, companies must be aware of the impact that their activities produce in the economic, environmental, and social spheres. Sustainability and sustainable development have become an important issue in attracting and building interest groups. Sustainability is understood as the degree to which the three types of capital or performance (economic, environmental and social) will be maintained (Laasch and Conaway, 2015). When talking about sustainability, many authors also refer to the triple result. Schulz, Finstad-Milion & Janczak (2018) describe sustainability as encompassing the three dimensions of the triple bottom line, understanding the triple bottom line as economic, environmental, and social performance. On the other hand, Epstein (2008) has taken a different approach to sustainability by fragmenting it into nine principles that are: ethics, government, transparency, commercial relations, financial return, community participation / economic development, value of products and services, employment practices and protection of the environment. Taking these approaches into account, and in line with previous studies, Khosravi and Izibirak (2019) have discussed the concept of sustainability as the ability to manage resources in the three different areas; economic, environmental and social (Ashby, Leat and Hudson-Smith, 2012, cited by (Khorsavi and Izbirak, 2019). Since sustainability can be a complex concept to define, Saunila, Nasiri, Ukko and Rantala (2019) are again refer to the triple bottom line approach to understand it from a commercial point of view; these authors consider that the prolonged prosperity of a company depends on paying attention to the three aspects of sustainability; the environmental one, which is based on the assumption that people they live within the physical and biological limits that serve the sources of life and the elimination of residues; the social, which is based on the accompaniment of social capital, for example, through the participation of local communities; and the economic, focusing on the financial value of the goods, including the costs of the environmental effects (Saunila et al., 2019). Similarly, to complement the above, Schulz, et al., (2018), following the approaches of Shrinastava and Hart (1995), affirm that sustainability provides the opportunity for a system to develop in a way that maintains the potential for implementation for the future of generations. This development must be considered comprehensively, which means that the economic, environmental, and social aspects must be considered in parallel (Shrinastava, 2008, cited by Schulz et al., 2018).

Linked to all of the above, the concept of sustainable development emerges. The World Commission on Environment and Development defines it as “development that meets the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (Brundtland et al., 1987, cited by Dissanayake, Tilt and Xydias -Wolf, 2016). Initially, only environmental aspects were referred to, but over the decades its scope was expanded to address social and economic problems (Pérez and Rodríguez del Bosque, 2014). In accordance with the definition proposed by Brundtland et al., (1987), Sneddon et al., (2006; cited by Bradley, Parry and O'Regan, 2019) set out the three main goals of sustainable development. The economic objective is to achieve greater equity in the distribution of resources among societies; the social objective is to improve human well-being; and the environmental objective is to achieve development that remains within environmental limitations and that maintains environmental integrity during intergenerational time scales (Sneddon et al., 2006, cited by Bradley et al., 2019).