Existential Philosophy of Corporate Sustainability in Iran: A Hybrid Approach

Disclosure of corporate sustainability performance has created a great incentive for companies to improve their competitive advantage and has become a vital tool to meet the growing needs of corporate stakeholders to increase information transparency. The purpose of this research is to analyze the existential philosophy of corporate sustainability with emphasis on the causes, goals, advantages, disadvantages and beneficiaries of corporate sustainability based on a hybrid approach. The analysis of the qualitative part of the research was done through a semi-structured interview with 20 experts in this field and with the method of theme analysis. In the quantitative part, in order to measure the validity of the discovered concepts, by using a researcher-made questionnaire and confirming its validity and reliability, the opinions of 123 experts were obtained and analyzed using statistical tests. The findings of the research show that the most important reason for its emergence is the inability of traditional financial reports to cover the changes in the business environment and satisfy the needs of the stakeholders, due to the focus on the financial aspect and short-term time horizon; Achieving and simultaneously managing profits and responding to social and environmental expectations is the most important goal; Increasing the quality of financial reporting is the most important advantage and the possibility of pretending to implement corporate sustainability and diverting public minds in order to escape from laws and regulations is the most important disadvantage of corporate sustainability.