Newspapers on sustainable development - a postmodern business perspective

Abstract

The paper departs from an urge to understand the operating environment of business firms in the postmodern society. In identifying sustainable development as a key concept, we make use of daily newspapers to explore which values these attach to reporting on sustainable development. After identifying these norms of society, we argue that firms have taken on a role in people’s lives that former pertained to the religious, collective culture. Business organizations provide a sense of belonging in times when people look for new areas of selfidentification. This role has been accepted opportunistically and strategically in the business world. We thus identify a weak SD paradigm, which seems to increasingly appear in our everyday life, whether one is, beside a newspaper reader, primarily a customer or a business manager.