The adoption of the key performance indicators to integrate sustainability in the business strategy: A novel five-dimensional framework

Over the past few years, the role of the organization has radically changed, moved from the traditional value creation process, based on the accounting data and cost analysis, to an innovative and proactive approach, sustainability oriented. The resulting sustainable development (SD) issues and their integration in the business strategy for managing environmental complexity are more relevant than ever. Despite the growing interest of the literature related to these themes, a more in-depth analysis on the key value drivers of sustainability, positively perceived by managers, and their integration at a business level is strongly required to support an effective SD process. Accordingly, to generate a strategic alignment in the sustainability transition process, scholars and practitioners require a clear view of the key drivers, metrics, and potential solutions. To this end, we focused on two main purposes aimed (1) to provide a sustainable key performance indicator (KPI) system useful to support decision-making process of managers and (2) to identify how can sustainable indicators be integrated into business strategy with a view to performance improvement, suggesting future paths to analysis. In view of the research proposes addressed, based on semistructured interviews with 110 managers specialized in sustainable practices, we provided a novel five-dimensional framework, built on a specific set of SD indexes. The model aims to provide a structured way to adequately integrate sustainability at a strategic level. The results generate a robust roadmap for future analysis in this research field.