Social Media Strategy in Sustainable Business

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, the concept of sustainable business has become a popular research topic in both management and organization fields [1,2]. Business sustainability is an executive approach that takes environmental and social problems as corporate objectives along with traditional profit objectives [3]. It is meeting the needs of a firm’s direct and indirect stakeholders (e.g. shareholders, employees, clients, pressure groups, communities, etc.) without compromising its ability to meet the needs of future stakeholders as well [4,5]. In practice, a good number of firms voluntarily evaluate their own corporate sustainability and disclose the impact they make on the environment, society, and the economy [6–8]. Other firms incorporate sustainability into their core business model to explore new business opportunities so as to create shared value together with various stakeholders [9]. Nevertheless, the market outcome of sustainable business is not always positive, with some studies reporting discouraging consumer reaction due to behavioral attitudes, low priority of sustainability [10,11], and low trust from investors due to their concern regarding the authenticity and profitability of businesses’ sustainable efforts [12–15].

At the same time, scholars have noted that the rapid growth of social media allows brands to interact with interested parties and they present opportunities for relationship building [16]. Social media enables organizations to have ongoing and real-time dialog with existing and potential customers [17,18], shape conversations, and influence consumers’ brand perceptions [17], thus empowering word-of-mouth [19] and generating added sales [20]. The use of social media has become increasingly important for consumer engagement [21–23]. Numerous studies have been conducted to investigate the impact of social media strategies [24], the optimal design of social media strategies and tactics [21,25,26], and the factors influencing the effectiveness of social media strategies [27–29].

With these two concurrent trends, this Special Issue will discuss the key theoretical, empirical, and contextual mechanisms to bridge social media and sustainable business. We are interested in understanding how businesses leverage the power of social media to enhance their sustainability and competitiveness, as well as how firms’ social media strategy can benefit from their sustainable efforts.

We invite you to contribute to this issue by submitting comprehensive reviews, conceptual frameworks, empirical studies, case studies, or other research articles. Submissions for the Special Issue should be made via the normal submission process.

References

1. Mayr, S. Corporate social responsibility in SMEs: The case of an Austrian construction company. J. Bus. Res. 2015, 15, 61–72.
2. Sasse-Werhahn, L. F.; Bachmann, C.; Habisch, A. managing tensions in corporate sustainability through a practical wisdom lens. Bus. Eth. 2018, 1–14, doi:10.1007/s10551-018-3994-z.
3. Ussahawanitchakit, P. Corporate proactiveness, business experience, environmental complexity, and firm sustainability: Evidence from information technology business in Thailand. Int. Bus. Econ. 2011, 11, 66–74.
4. Dyllick, T.; Hockerts, K. Beyond the business case for corporate sustainability. Strategy Environ. 2002 11, 130–141.
5. Hockerts, K. A cognitive perspective on the business case for corporate sustainability. Strategy Environ. 2015, 24, 102–122.
6. Amaeshi, K.; Adegbite, E.; Rajwani, T. Corporate Social Responsibility in challenging and non-enabling institutional contexts: do institutional voids matter? Bus. Ethics., 2016, 134, 135–153.
7. Bebbington, J.; Thomson, I. Social and environmental accounting, auditing and reporting: a potential source of organizational risk governance? Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 2007, 25, 38–55.
8. Milne, M. J.; Gray, R. W(H)ither ecology? The triple bottom line, the global reporting initiative, and corporate sustainability reporting. Bus. Eth. 2013, 118, 13–29.
9. Porter, M.E; Kramer, M.R. Strategy & Society The Link between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility. Bus. Rev. 2006, 84, 78–85.
10. Bhattacharya, C.B.; Sen, S. Doing better at doing good: When, why and how consumers respond to corporate social initiatives. Manag. Rev. 2004, 47, 9–24,
11. Irvin R.; Naylor R.W. Ethical Decisions and Response Mode Compatibility: Weighting of Ethical Attributes in Consideration Sets Formed by Excluding Versus Including Product Alternatives. J. Mark. Res. 2009, 46, 234–246
12. Arendt, S.; Brettel, M. Understanding the influence of corporate social responsibility on corporate identity, image, and firm performance. Decis. 2010, 48, 1469–1492.
13. Capriotti, P.; Moreno, A. Corporate Citizenship and Public Relations: The Importance and Interactivity of Social Responsibility Issues on Corporate Websites. Public Relat. Rev. 2007, 33, 84–91.
14. Cardamone, P.; Carnevale, C.; Giunta, F. The value relevance of social reporting: Evidence from listed Italian companies. Appl. Account. Res. 2012, 13, 255–269.
15. Kim, S.Y.; Reber, B.H. Public relations’ place in corporate social responsibility: Practitioners define their role. Public Relat. Rev. 2008, 34, 337–342.
16. Harridge-March, S.; Quinton, S. Virtual snakes and ladders: social networks and the relationship marketing loyalty ladder. Rev. 2009, 9, 171–181.
17. Farshid, M.; Plangger, K.; Nel, D. “The social media faces of major global financial service brands”. Financ. Serv. Mark. 2011, 16, 220–229.
18. Laroche, M.; Habibi, M. R.; Richard, M. O.; Sankaranarayanan, R. The effects of social media based brand communities on brand community markers, value creation practices, brand trust and brand loyalty. Hum. Behav. 2012, 28, 1755–1767.
19. Luo, X.; Zhang, J. How do consumer buzz and traffic. Manag. Inf. Syst. 2013, 30, 213–238
20. Kumar, V.; Mirchandani, R. Increasing the ROI of social media marketing. MIT Sloan Manag. Rev. 2012, 54, 55–61.
21. Chaffey, D.; Ellis-Chadwick, F. Digital Marketing. Pearson: London. UK, 2019.
22. Dahl, S. Social Media Marketing: Theories and Applications. Sage: Los Angeles, CA, USA, 2018.
23. Harrigan, P.; Soutar, G.; Choudhury, M. M.; Lowe, M. Modelling CRM in a social media age. Mark. J. 2015, 23, 27–37.
24. Laksamana, P. Impact of social media marketing on purchase intention and brand loyalty: evidence from Indonesia’s banking industry. Rev. Manag. Mark. 2018, 8, 13–18.
25. de Ruyter, K.; Keeling, D. I.; Viet Ngo, L. When nothing is what it seems. A Digital Marketing Research Agenda. Mark. J. 2018, 26, 199–203
26. Harris, J. Cover All the Bases with 21 Winning Content Marketing Techniques, 2017. Available online: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/05/winning-content-marketing-tactics/ (accessed on 28 September 2019)
27. Brookes, Erika J. The Anatomy of a Facebook Post: Study on Post Performance by Type, Day of the Week, and Time of Day, 2010. Available online: http://vitrue.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Anatomy-of-FB-WP.pdf. (accessed on 17 December 2019)
28. Keath, J.; Justin K.; Ellie M.; Justin L. Facebook Page Marketing. HubSpot 2011. Available online: http://www.hubspot.com/Portals/53/docs/ebooks/facebook%20page%20ebook2011.pdf (accessed on 24 September 2011).
29. Lee, D.; Hosanagar, K.; Nair, H. S. Advertising content and consumer engagement on social media: evidence from Facebook. Sci. 2018, 64, 5105–5131.

Dr. Gohar Khan
Dr. Pengji Wang
Dr. Jacob Wood
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Social media, new opportunities, and operational models of sustainable business
• Branding of sustainable business and social media
• Social media and sustainable consumer behavior
• Corporate social responsibility and social media
• Social media and sustainable business in different cultures and industries
• Environmental capabilities and social media
• Business capabilities for environmentally sustainable use of social media
• The role of social media in environmentally sustainable business, etc.