The role of stakeholders in a transition toward advanced corporate sustainability: A representation of the European wind power industry and the case of Vestas Wind Systems A/S

Sammanfattning: The wind power industry has long remained passive on broader sustainability issues, grounded in the perception that the industry is inherently linked with environmental sustainability. Within the past 5 years, there has been a dramatic change in the stakeholder and corporate perception of sustainability. Increasing expectations from stakeholders are pressuring wind OEMs to transition and advance corporate sustainability strategies. Contingencies that explain corporate responses as an effect on these stakeholder pressures are limited in researched and little is yet known about the patterns and mechanisms of transition processes in established firms in the wind industry. This work draws on stakeholder theory, sustainable transition literature, and incumbency perspectives to pluralize previous literature and generate knowledge in the stage between the identified change in stakeholder expectations, and the implementation of a corporate sustainability transition process. The thesis takes a particular focus on describing the stakeholder landscape in the wind industry, explaining the progression of external and internal sustainability perception over time, and explaining the implications of such developments on environmental corporate strategy decisions. Empirical data is collected from 49 news articles in 3 independent online news magazines, 7 interviews with company managers, and 7 participant observations, analyzed and coded through a content analysis approach in NVivo. The findings show that stakeholder expectations and corporate responses are a continuous balancing act of misalignment and realignment in sustainability perception. Both reactive and proactive strategy approaches may coexist, which can be based on underlying motivations that also coexist on a spectrum of risk avoidant contra value adding drivers. These concepts tend to be distinctly separated in prior literature. This thesis also supports a positive relationship between responsive corporate sustainability transition and incumbency. Further research would be beneficial in other renewable energy sectors to address shared issues regarding lowering CO2 emissions in the supply chains, handling increasing waste streams, and improving circular approaches across industries.