RESOLUCIÓN N.° 355/AGC/

Considering severe sustainability challenges resulting from business conduct, companies are increasingly expected to take responsibility for the negative social, ecological and economic effects related to their value creation activities. In this dissertation, corporate efforts to cope with sustainability challenges related to value creation activities are summarized under the notion of value chain responsibility (VCR). Yet, value chain responsibility is not taking place in a vacuum. Instead, this dissertation emphasizes that aspects of VCR take place in a value chain context characterized by complexity and constant change. In particular, two phenomena are important in this regard: the fragmentation of sustainability governance and the changing

VCR expectations of stakeholders. Fragmented sustainability governance describes the complex

regulatory environment in which business firms operate their value creation activities and VCR efforts. Changing stakeholder expectations describe how stakeholders in the firm’s environment are increasingly drawing the firm’s attention to (novel) sustainability topics and challenges which require adequate responses. Furthermore, these two phenomena have considerable interlinkages to the firm’s internal management practices and organization and thus represent two worthwhile fields of business management research. Against this background, the overarching objective of this paper-based dissertation is to expand our

understanding how companies can take value chain responsibility in environments shaped by complexity, fragmented sustainability governance and changing stakeholder expectations.

To achieve this, this dissertation builds on the findings and contributions of four individual papers: Paper I starts with the premise that, in order to proactively cope with (negative) effects of fragmented sustainability governance, companies need guidance. Therefore, Paper I provides an initial ‘mapping’ of the scholarly literature on the phenomenon of fragmented sustainability governance and its interlinkages with the firm. In order to achieve this, Paper I uses a systematic literature review consisting of 134 peer-reviewed journal publications as well as a citation network analysis to find out more about the composition of the research. Simultaneously, Paper I uses the content of the identified publications to derive a conceptual framework of the multifaceted phenomenon of fragmented sustainability governance as well as to introduce a preliminary overview of management tools to cope with fragmented governance.

Paper II suggests that, in order to be able to deal with fragmented sustainability governance in a particular industrial sector, business practitioners first need to understand the drivers and reasons behind the emergence of a fragmented governance landscape. Therefore, Paper II derives general explanatory factors from a literature review that help us understand the emergence of fragmented sustainability governance. With the help of an encompassing case study and 26 in-depth expert interviews, Paper II explores the drivers of governance fragmentation in the empirical case of the global gold sector. As a key contribution, Paper II introduces a conceptual framework which contextualizes general and gold-specific explanatory factors for governance fragmentation.

Paper III starts with the premise that companies are nowadays also actively shaping the ‘rules of the game’ of business conduct and value chain responsibility in their novel role as governance makers. Companies could thus presumably not only be affected by fragmented sustainability governance but instead also contribute to this fragmentation or multiplicity of governance in the first place. In more detail, Paper III explores how companies are affected by and affect the fragmentation of sustainability governance in the empirical case of the global gold sector. By doing so, the paper employs the conceptual framework by Pies, Beckmann and Hielscher (Pies et al., 2010, 2014) that distinguishes between the stages of rule-finding, rule- setting and rule-following as a searchlight for analysis.

Paper IV leaves the realm of fragmented sustainability governance. It focuses on changing stakeholder expectations in the firm’s external environment and on how these changes might require internal changes within the firm. As a conceptual paper, Paper IV uses insights from a Luhmannian evolutionary systems theory perspective to understand how VCR changes in the

firm’s environment might require internal structural changes. In particular, Paper IV provides some arguments for a functional alignment of the corporate functions sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) and trade compliance (TC) to jointly take value chain responsibility. Simultaneously, Paper IV draws on insights of organizational path dependency to illustrate potential barriers of such an alignment.

Considering the integration of the research findings and managerial implications, this dissertation emphasizes that first, business practitioners are required to develop a more profound understanding of the ambivalent phenomenon of fragmented sustainability governance. Second, although companies are now equipped with an initial ‘map’ for the literature on fragmented sustainability governance, they still need to adapt general management tools to deal with governance fragmentation to their specific contextual settings and incorporate additional sources of knowledge and best practices beyond academia. Here, the dissertation emphasizes the importance of intra-firm knowledge exchange and a knowledge management system. Third, all four papers of this dissertation highlight the importance of external stakeholders for the firm’s ability to take VCR along its value chain. Hence, this dissertation once again emphasizes the importance of taking stakeholders’ expectations into account. Fourth, in light of considerable changes in the firm’s environment, the firm will need to respond internally with changes in its functional and structural organization. Fifth, this dissertation provides some stimulus on linking the novel role of governance making to strategical considerations of the business firm, e.g. considering the strategic engagement in rule-finding discourses and rule-setting activities (e.g. via multi-stakeholder initiatives). Sixth, understanding value chain responsibility as a joint effort of value chain actors, this dissertation emphasizes the importance of partnerships between the business firm and its value chain partners and third parties to successfully take VCR. This could even entail the cooperation with competitors. Likewise, the importance of internal partnerships and cooperation of different corporate functions such as SSCM and TC is highlighted as a prerequisite to take VCR. Overall, this dissertation provides distinct contributions to the scholarly community. This includes, but is not limited to, the wider scholarly discussion on the political role of the firm, business ethics studies, management studies, political science as well as systems theory, organizational studies, sustainable supply chain management scholarship and the literature on trade compliance. Naturally, given its focus on value chain responsibility, this dissertation also provides some assets to the greater academic field of corporate social responsibility, corporate responsibility and corporate sustainability. Having said that, this dissertation also provides four promising avenues for further research: First, considering our understanding of value chain responsibility in a complex environment, I suggest additional research on a) the drivers of sustainability governance fragmentation in other commodity sectors beyond the researched gold sector and b) the analysis of the interlinkages of companies with fragmented sustainability governance across different sectors and branches. Second, regarding the role of organizational and personal competences to thrive in an environment of fragmented governance and complex stakeholder expectations, I call for further research to explore the organizational and personal competences which are needed to fulfill the novel role of the firm as a governance maker. Likewise, more research is required to understand the needed competences to manage or cope with fragmented sustainability governance from the perspective of the firm as a governance taker. Third, regarding the availability of theoretical foundations, I encourage researchers to develop further theoretical insights regarding the phenomenon of fragmented sustainability governance and in particular the role of business firms in environments of fragmented governance. Fourth, considering the role of business management research, I invite scholars from the business and economics community to incorporate aspects of fragmented sustainability governance and its linkages to the business firm into their research agenda. Doing so might resemble a first step to provide guidance for corporate practitioners to successfully cope with fragmented governance.