Drivers of sustainability talk-action inconsistency: organizational hypocrisy at business schools (WITHDRAWN)

This paper develops a multi-level view of an unplanned kind of organizational hypocrisy, which is an emergent rather than deliberate strategy. By studying MBA programmes at UK business schools which have ‘talk’ that indicates a commitment to sustainability and which have taken strategic ‘decisions’ to implement, this study finds examples of both inconsistent and consistent ‘action’ and empirical support to confirm organizational hypocrisy as an outcome in the sector, despite intentions to be consistent. Using fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) this paper identifies multiple factors across multiple levels that combine to explain this kind of organizational hypocrisy, where factors at the lowest level of analysis are key and always play a part in our explanations of causality. A further finding that prestigious business schools are linked with hypocrisy regarding sustainability, and yet continue to prosper, allows us to develop the notion of organizational hypocrisy as something which is var...