Pär Åhlström

Manufacturing firms increasingly face pressure to integrate sustainability practices into their operations, yet research shows mixed findings regarding the performance implications of such integration. We argue that these inconsistent results stem from insufficient attention to how sustainability practices are positioned within firms’ operations, as a network of practices- specifically whether they function as core or peripheral practices. Drawing on organization theory and the practice-based view, we analyze longitudinal data from 65 U.S.-based public manufacturing firms (910 firm-year observations) from 2009 to 2022 to examine: (1) how sustainability practices transition between core and peripheral positions over time, and (2) how this positioning affects operational performance. Our findings reveal significant dynamism in how sustainability practices are positioned within firms’ operations networks, with practices shifting between core and peripheral positions rather than maintaining fixed positioning. Moreover, while core sustainability practices consistently drive positive performance outcomes through enhanced operational efficiency, peripheral practices show negative performance effects, likely due to implementation challenges and resource conflicts. Contrary to expectations, we find no evidence that peripheral practices complement core practices to enhance performance. These results advance the understanding of how the positioning of sustainability practices within operations’ network shape their performance implications while offering practical guidance for managers on effectively integrating them into their operations.

Motivated by inconclusive findings on the sustainability-performance relationship, this study focuses on the question of whether sustainability should be viewed as a financial burden or a firm performance catalyst. More specifically, this study aims to explore the crucial yet under-examined role of quality management in the sustainability-performance relationship. However, unlike previous studies that narrow their focus to only a subset of quality management practices subsumed under one banner, such as TQM or lean, this research advocates for the integration of multiple quality management practices to cultivate “quality management diligence”, namely, a rigorous and disciplined mindset to ensure that quality is integrated into every facet of a firm. Drawing on a panel of 1876 European firms with 16,901 firm-year observations over the period of 2003-2023, panel data regression is employed to empirically examine the effect of quality management diligence on sustainability and their subsequent impacts on firm performance. The empirical findings indicate a positive relationship between quality management diligence and the adoption of environmental/social sustainability practices and between the adoption of environmental/social sustainability practices and firm performance. Our results also confirm the mediating role of sustainability in the relationship between quality management diligence and firm performance.