**4. Results & Discussion**

Based on the pre-established guidelines, 81 papers qualify as output present for espousing a definition or embracing a meaning of corporate sustainability. See Figures 4 and 5. This is explained by the fact that the selected 132 papers also included articles there were simply instrumental for understanding the concept of corporate sustainability and did not necessarily express a definition or interpretation of corporate sustainability. Within these 81 papers, the dimensions of Environmental and Social are always present. This makes Environment and Social considerations necessary conditions, and therefore constitutive features of the concept of corporate sustainability. There are three papers where the outcome of CS is present and the aspect of 'Economic' was not explicitly mentioned as a constitutive feature. Additionally, the findings show that Time and Governance are not necessary conditions of the concept of CS, as, respectively, 65 and 76 papers define corporate sustainability without consideration to the Time and Governance dimensions. See Figure 6 for results.


**Figure 6.** Number of articles that mention a specific pillar as constitutive to the concept of CS.

Contingency matrixes are presented in Figure 7. Since we adopted the approach of selecting and analyzing cases with positive outputs, the bottom part of the contingency matrix is theoretically not relevant. Nonetheless, we report the findings for completeness of information. The list of the 132 papers with reference to the identified constitutive features can be found in the Supplementary Material.

**Figure 7.** Contingency matrixes outputs.

That the environmental dimension of the concept of corporate sustainability is a necessary condition is perhaps of no surprise. As observed in the historical evolution, the concept was clearly born out of environmental considerations, and consistently carries

this dimension through until today. It is of interest, however, to observe how the social dimension, which is typical of the concept corporate social responsibility, has become a necessary condition of corporate sustainability, cementing the convergence of the concepts of responsibility and sustainability. Based on the findings, to be sustainable, corporates need to jointly consider environmental and social issues. The results over the Economic dimension need deeper consideration. It cannot be disregarded that 78 out of 81 papers regard Economic as a necessary condition. The famous three pillars of the Triple Bottom Line are very well known to include the Economic dimension. The Brundtland report, which launched the concept of sustainable development, put economic development at the core of the concept. The absence of Economics in a limited number of articles can be explained by a few factors. With the foundation of the Global Reporting Index, an international organization that promotes standardization of sustainability reporting, the ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) approach was developed. The GRI took it as a given that companies need to be financially viable if they want to survive, and for this reason replaced the Economic dimension with the Governance dimension [93]. Since then, it has become popular within some corporates to report corporate sustainability in terms of ESG, especially after the support received by the UN "Principles for Responsible Investment", whose members voluntarily commit to consider ESG criteria in their investment decision and to align the reporting practice accordingly. Nonetheless, the GRI themselves include Economic guidelines in their universal standard for reporting corporate sustainability (GRI 201 to GRI 207), confirming the centrality of this dimension in the concept of corporate sustainability. Furthermore, we argue that some authors focused on defining the 'sustainability' aspect of CS taking the Economic one as a given attribute of the definition of corporate operations. Specifically, the papers that do not mention Economic as a constitutive features of CS are: Kim and Lyon [95] who used ESG; Griffiths and Petrick [96], who investigated which organizational architectures can best facilitate the implementation of ecological and human sustainability, concerning with the new aspects of sustainability; and Cheng [86], who reported the definition of the European Commission, (2001) in the Green Report: "voluntary integration of social and environmental concerns in the companies' operations and in the interaction with stakeholders" (p. 2). The same report, however, clearly cites in multiple parts of the document the centrality of the Economic dimension. The same definition is, in fact, reported by Van Marrewijk [68] with extensive analysis and inclusion of the Economic dimension.

In the literature, the Economic dimension has been defined/treated within three connotations: 1. The need to be profitable, 2. The need to reduce short term maximization of profits for the benefit of longer-term benefits, and 3. The impact of the Economic dimension on the Environmental and Social ones. The need to be profitable is intrinsic in the concept of a corporate entity—without sustained profits—a company ceases to exist. If a company ceases to exist, there are no longer Environmental and Social considerations associated to a corporate. The need to reduce short term profit maximization for longer term benefits and durability is at the very core of the Brundtland definition that started the concept of sustainable development, where environmental and social needs were counterposed to the need of guaranteeing human wellbeing through economic growth, both for the current and future generations. This states the centrality of the Economic dimension. On this note, it is important to clarify that within the concept of Corporate Sustainability, the Economic dimension is not and should not be associated with the traditional connotation of profit maximization, but with the notion of sustained profitability, which enables organizations to survive in the future. The third understanding relates to the sustainability dilemma, which indicates the unfound equilibrium between conflicting goals of economic growth with environmental and social preservation. Without the goal of profitability, environmental and social preservation become easier tasks. However, if without profitability the company ceases to exist and there is no longer damage done to the environment and society, therefore the Environmental and Social dimensions from a corporate standpoint are no longer applicable. In addition, equally to traditional statistical analysis where there is a tolerance for a 5% deviation, NCA allows for explainable outliers. Our deviation falls within the usual 5% level. In view of the explainable outliers and based on the normative analysis of the Economic dimension, we judiciously include the Economic dimension within the set of necessary conditions.

The dimension of Governance and Time clearly do not appear as a constitutive feature of corporate sustainability, and the respective hypothesis are therefore rejected. In fact, we argue that, although some authors specifically indicated them as foundational to the concept, Governance pertains to the realm of 'How' to implement corporate sustainability and Time pertains to the realm of 'Why' it is convenient or necessary to implement CS practices. Governance is a set of rules, practices, and processes, used to direct and manage a company. Governance is one of the organizational tools that can be used for enabling the implementation of CS practices, and it is an enabler rather than an end goal. The Time dimension explains the need to sustain the economic results, environmental protection, and social responsibility, as further as possible in the future. It responds to the question 'why' by clearly spelling out the importance of retaining the capability of satisfying the needs of the future generation: we need to implement CS practices to give future generations access to the same benefits as ours. It has been referenced in some of the articles as "leading a desirable future state for all stakeholders" [97], "intergenerational fairness" [75], "protecting, sustaining, and enhancing the human and natural resources that will be needed in the future" [52], and "resources must be distributed at macro levels across time" [94]. The Time dimension offers the purpose of corporate sustainability. Arguably the generally limited emphasis in the literature on the Time dimension, not necessarily as a constitutive feature, can be interpreted as one of the root causes of the CS business paradigm not living up to its promises. Losing sight of the purpose and therefore of the reasons whereby transformation is needed can cause delays and complacency with the status-quo.
