Abstract

Relationships between the environmental and economic dimensions of sustainability have been solidly specified, but relatively little attention has been given to the social sphere. The current study attempts to fill this gap by integrating corporate environmentalism more fully with concepts of corporate sustainability. This investigation draws specifically from neo-Habermasian critical environmental theory research and brings three concepts together for closer empirical examination: the public sphere, the communicative rationality, and discursive design with the goal of capturing whether critical and reflective organizational systems (CROS) among the selected sample of business participants are in fact developing. Using content analysis on corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, the study reveals that some business organizations appear to be on the brink of developing a type of learning environment consistent with CROS thinking. The empirical findings also suggest that there is a transformative effect on citizenship that can result from the teaching and learning that is facilitated by voluntary CSR initiatives