Our purpose
Our purpose is to co-create a sustainable future through academic excellence, partnerships and impactful projects sharing the knowledge, skills, and values necessary to address societal grand challenges. We adopt a systems approach to inspire sustainable practices and responsible behaviour that builds an equitable future for all.
Our people
Our Sustainability Hub is an interdisciplinary community of researchers, teaching staff, PhD students, and practitioners, all united by a shared passion for making the world a better place. Each of us brings our own unique expertise and a commitment to promoting sustainable practices and responsible corporate behaviour.
Professor Nitha Palakshappa
Nitha is a professor of marketing and sustainability in the School of Management. Her research interests sit broadly within an umbrella of sustainability and social responsibility.
Dr Aymen Sajjad
Aymen is a Senior Lecturer in Sustainability and Business Management. His research focuses on sustainability issues that confront organisations and societies. Aymen's research interests include sustainable supply chain management, green supply chain management, business sustainability, corporate social responsibility, United Nations sustainable development goals, and sustainable business strategy.
Dr Sarah Dodds
Dr Sarah Dodds has over 15 years of experience teaching marketing at the tertiary level. She also owned a health business and began her marketing career in New Zealand tourism. Her expertise lies in Consumer Behaviour and Services Marketing with a healthcare emphasis. Underlying her work is the philosophy marketing can contribute positively to society and specifically to people's well-being.
Associate Professor Ralph Bathurst
Ralph is a leadership scholar focusing on the arts of leadership and the aesthetics of organisations. He's published in Leadership, Journal of Management Inquiry, International Journal of Arts Management, ephemera: theory & politics in organization and Philosophy of Management. His interest is in arts organisations and their sustainability, focusing on how the arts can influence business practice.
Dr Kazunori Kobayashi
Kazunori's research interests are in corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainability practices and strategies, human and social sustainability, wellbeing, sustainable development goals and enterprise, and business ethics.
Professor David Tappin
David is a work and organisation scholar and co-director of the Healthy Work Group in Massey Business School. His background is industry-based research & consultancy in NZ, and his research interests are the nature and quality of work and its effects on health, sustainability and performance. This research background informs and guides his teaching, research, and supervision.
Jessica Crewe-Brown
I am a senior tutor in the School of Management where I teach a range of undergraduate papers in management and strategy. My research interests are sustainability, strategy as a practice, and open strategy. I am also a PhD student, and my thesis focuses on the consequences of inclusive and transparent strategy practices.
Omer Nazir
Omer seeks to engage with, support and collaborate with communities that address the most urgent issues in contemporary society related to unsustainable practices and socio-ecological crises. His theoretical framework draws on critical management studies, neo-institutional discourse, and theories of political economy.with a focus on post-capitalist approaches to organising for social change.
Hiva Rastegar Moghadam Moadab
I recently completed my PhD in Management at Massey. My research examined the impact of climate change-induced natural disasters on renewable energy innovation. My research interests include sustainability, renewable energy innovation, corporate resilience, and the strategic responses of firms to climate change uncertainty. I have taught business and management courses at Massey.
Projects
MURF Funding for Critical Research on Social Sustainability Issues
There are increasing calls for more meaningful engagement with social issues such as poverty, diversity, health, and well-being. A multi-disciplinary perspective, that considers the role of management and marketing in ensuring the obligations of Agenda 2030 and the SDGs are met, particularly within the value chain, has become increasingly important (United Nations, 2024).
Prior research has focused on production in the value chain, yet social sustainability warrants attention to understand the role of business in ensuring wellbeing for all actors in the ecosystem.
The funds will be used to initiate both internal and external collaborations to address social issues related to value chains – transparency, work precarity, modern slavery. Internally, these funds will be used to frame a series of projects designed to answer the highlighted research gap and following research objectives, in a New Zealand context. Externally, our intended work aligns with The Centre of Sustainability and Governance Research at Edith Cowan University (ECU). ECU is a primary collaborative partner of the MBS Sustainability Hub, and it is the intention of this project to gain a cross-Tasman (Australasian) perspective on social sustainability in value chains.
Publications
Journal articles and papers
Amoah, P., Eweje, G., & Bathurst, R. J. (2020). Understanding grand challenges in sustainability implementation within mining in developing countries. Social Business, 10(2), 123–149. https://doi.org/10.1362/204440820X15813359568309
Bathurst, R. J., & Chen, S. M. (2024). The [un]ethics of truth-telling: When a board member goes feral 14th Annual Australasian Business Ethics Network (ABEN) Hybrid Conference, University of Adelaide.
Bulmer, S., Palakshappa, N., Dodds, S., & Harper, S. (2024). Sustainability, brand authenticity and Instagram messaging. Journal of Business Research, 175, 114547.
Chen, M. S., & Bathurst, R. J. (2023). Managing strategic tensions in food packaging to achieve immanent organisational ethics: Empirical analyses from New Zealand primary food sector 13th Annual Australasian Business Ethics Network (ABEN), Sydney.
Dodds, S. and Palakshappa, N. (2022), "Service inclusion: the role of disability identity in retail", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 143-153. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-06-2021-0217
Farrukh, A., & Sajjad, A. (2024). Investigating Supply Chain Disruptions and Resilience in the Textile Industry: A Systemic Risk Theory and Dynamic Capability-Based View. Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management.
Farrukh, A., & Sajjad, A. (2024). Drivers for and barriers to circular economy transition in the textile industry: A developing economy perspective. Sustainable Development. 32(6), 7309-7329
Farrukh, A., & Sajjad, A. (2024). Investigating sustainability tensions and resolution strategies in the plastic food packaging industry – A paradox theory approach. Business Strategy and the Environment.
Ganesh, S., Harness, D., James, S., Klingelhoefer, J., Schnell, M., & Palakshappa, N. (2024). The Powerpoint Imagination: visualization and managerial vocabularies in sustainability reports. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 67(9), 1886-1908.
Khan, M., Lockhart, J. C., & Bathurst, R. J. (2020). A multi-level institutional perspective of corporate social responsibility reporting: A mixed-method study. Journal of Cleaner Production, 265(On line first), 1–14. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.121739
Khan, M., Lockhart, J. C., & Bathurst, R. J. (2021). The institutional analysis of CSR: Learnings from an emerging country. Emerging Markets Review, 46, 1–16. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ememar.2020.100752
Kobayashi, K., Eweje, G., & Tappin, D. (2024). Changing overwork culture: Stakeholder management for employee wellbeing and social sustainability in large Japanese companies. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management. 31(5), 5032-5048
Palakshappa, N., Dodds, S., & Stangl, L. M. (2024). Understanding sustainable service ecosystems: a meso-level perspective. Journal of Services Marketing, 38(3), 288-300.
Palakshappa, N., Bulmer, S., & Dodds, S. (2024). Co-creating sustainability: transformative power of the brand. Journal of Marketing Management, 40(9-10), 820-850.
Palakshappa, N., Dodds, S. and Bulmer, S. (2022), Cause for pause in retail service: a respond, reimagine, recover framework, Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 36 No. 4, pp. 584-596. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-05-2021-0176
Palakshappa, N., Dodds, S. & Grant, S. (2023) Tension and Paradox in Women-Oriented Sustainable Hybrid Organizations: A Duality of Ethics. Journal of Business Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-023-05422-z
Palakshappa, N., Venkateswar, S. and Ganesh, S. (2023), "Broadening the circle: creativity, regeneration and redistribution in value loops", Social Responsibility Journal, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/SRJ-09-2022-0367
Rastegar, H., Sajjad, A., Eweje, G., & Kobayashi, K. (2024). Sustainability in the wake of crisis: Transforming climate change-induced disasters into drivers of renewable energy innovation in business. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization.
Rastegar, H., Sajjad, A., Eweje, G., & Kobayashi, K. (2024). Enhancing Sustainability in Renewable Energy Innovation: The Role of Peer Dynamics and Firm Characteristics Amid Climate Crises. Business Strategy and the Environment.
Sajjad, A., Eweje, G., & Raziq, MM. (2024). Sustainability leadership: An integrative review and conceptual synthesis. Business Strategy and the Environment. 33(4), 2849-2867
Sturm, D. (2023). Processes of greenwashing, virtue signalling, and sportswashing in contemporary Formula One. In H. Naess, & S. Chadwick (Eds.) The Future of Motorsports: Business, Politics and Society (pp. 167-182). Routledge.
Sturm, D., Andrews, D. L., Miller, T., & Bustad, J. (2024). Green light or black flag? Greenwashing environmental sustainability in Formula One and Formula E. Annals of Leisure Research, Online First Publication: https://doi.org/10.1080/11745398.2024.2376754
News
Sustainability Futures Hub Inaugural Event
The Sustainability Futures Hub in partnership with Massey Business School’s Sustainable Success Series held a panel in November 2024 focusing on how businesses and academia can collaborate to drive socially responsible practices.
The purpose of the event was to launch the newly formed research hub and to gather people interested in being part of the conversation on shaping a sustainable future.
The event was a success with nearly 60 people attending and plenty of robust discussions.
Thanks to our panel members who made the evening such as success:
- Martin Fryer, Head of Strategy and Disclosures, Thinkstep ANZ
- Chloe Vos, Sustainability Coordinator, Briscoe Group
- Dr Rashid Zaman, School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University.
And thanks to our very own Sustainability Futures Hub Director Professor Nitha Palakshappa for facilitating.
We will be continuing the conversation on sustainable futures in 2025 so look out for our events.
Upcoming events
Please check this page later for our upcoming events.
Collaborate with us
We're always eager to explore new collaborations. If you're interested in discussing potential partnerships or have ideas for future events, please email Nitha Palakshappa at N.N.Palakshappa@massey.ac.nz