Abstract
Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs) play a fundamental role in addressing social and environmental challenges, often filling institutional voids where market mechanisms and state interventions are insufficient. However, while sustainability management has gained significant traction in the corporate sector, its systematic operationalization within the non-profit sector remains comparatively underexplored in both academic literature and managerial practice. Sustainability management tools developed within for-profit environments, where value creation is primarily financial and shareholder-centred, need to be adapted to the specificities of NPOs, operating in multi-stakeholder, legitimacy-driven environments where value is created through mission impact, societal legitimacy, and adaptive governance. This work describes the development of a management tool, adapted to the NPO context, to guide and enhance the integration of sustainability principles into organizational activities and operational strategies. In a first phase of this process, a systematic literature review was performed, complemented with empirical data collection, to identify sustainable value creation processes with relevance for the non-profit context, as well as internal and external determinant factors influencing the success of these processes. The following step was a quantitative study to assess the perceptions of NPOs’ managers regarding the relevance of selected features in sustainability management tools. Combining the results of these two research phases, a prototype of a sustainability management tool directed to the NPO context is under development, based on the ISI-SVEM sustainability integration framework. This prototype uses diagnosis tools, supported by artificial intelligence technologies, to identify improvement opportunities in sustainable value creation strategies, and support decision making processes.
Presenters
Ana FonsecaAssociate Professor, Faculty of Science and Technology, University Fernando Pessoa, Portugal
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Economic, Social, and Cultural Context
KEYWORDS
Organizational Sustainability, Non-Profit Organizations, Sustainability Management, Artificial Intelligence
