Growing towards a sustainable organisation by a phasewise introduction of Quality Management the European Corporate Sustainability Framework (ECSF)

This article describes the European Corporate Sustainability Framework (ECSF). This framework addresses complex issues such as Corporate Sustainability, Corporate Responsibility and Corporate Change. It is a conceptual framework based on the tradition of the quality management approach and the concept of phasewise development. The framework is based on several theories and models, all proven individually over several decades. These theories are the Emergent Cyclical Levels of Existence Theory (ECLET) of Professor Graves, The Four Phase Model© (Hardjono), EFQM’s Business Excellence Model, Kaplan and Norton’s Business Balanced scorecard, the research deliverables of the project “The European Way to Excellence” and the SqEME® methodology. All these models, theories and/or studies belong to the interpretative sociology (Burell & Morgan, 1992). The framework is designed in such a way that it enables a pluralistic approach to ethics and corporate responsibility, taking into account the ambiguity of the subject. Introduction It was the Club of Rome that awakened the world in 1972, already more then 30 years ago. They spoke of the limitations of growth and the consequences for the world if drastic changes should not be initiated. Whether one agrees or not, the fact remains, that this report was a global appeal for every one in society to take responsibility for the ecological environment; not only in relation to their own life, family, company or country, but to the world as a whole. A number of nongovernmental organizations were founded stressing the need to take good care of the ecological environment and striving for sustainability. In the eighties a more socially oriented movement arose. This movement focused not only about the way people were treated in organizations. The focus points of this movement varied from labour rights, to the way employees were given equal chances and even the way employees were inspired to act beyond their own perceived capabilities. The basic concept of this movement was that organizations are open systems, which in order to enable success and assure continuity, have to deal with different stakeholders. Instead of arguing the need for it John Elkington (1997) embraced these developments as a business principle and rephrased it as the “Triple Bottom Line” or “People, Planet and Profit”. Around the same period fourteen presidents of European multinationals, among them Van der Klugt from Philips, Lippuner from Ciba Geigy, Vallance from British Telecom, Lévy from Renault, Fahrni from Sulzer and de Soet from KLM came with the initiative of establishing the European Organization for Quality Management (EFQM). The model they developed is now known as the European Business Excellence Model. This model had and is still having great impact on society”. The concern for societal issues is illustrated by the fact that within this model one of the areas to address in becoming an excellent organization, has the name “Impact on Society”. Since its development many thousands of organizations have applied this business model. The European