Methodology - Sustainability in Retailing – Environmental Effects of Transport Processes, Shopp

To shed light on both the scientific research areas and the relevant industrial branches sustainability research has focused on so far, a summative content analysis seems appropriate. Furthermore, this approach also seems suitable for analysing the relevance of sustainability in retail research and practice in particular. A study using a summative content analysis approach commonly begins with an identification and quantification of certain words or content in the text or literature. The quantification is usually used to explore usage and focuses on counting the frequency of specific words or content if stopped at this point (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005; Kondracki, Wellman, & Amundson, 2002). The results show, for example, in how many documents of a database a word (e.g. sustainability) is used. This frequency can be split into different criteria, such as the year of publication, the respective journal, the research area or the industry classification of a document.

4.3.1 Analysis of scientific research

To identify which research areas in business and economics have considered sustainability problems, we firstly conducted an extensive literature search structured according to the Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) Classification System that is used to classify journal articles. JEL distinguishes 20 main categories, all of which include numerous subcategories. The searches were carried out based on the keywords provided by JEL for all main categories in combination with the sustainability search term “sustainab*”, which finds both “sustainable” and

“sustainability”. The American Economic Association (AEA) provides a detailed JEL Classification Codes Guide which supplies relevant keywords for each category and subcategory (American Economic Association, 2009). Both primary category and subcategory keywords were employed in the literature searches. On average, each category (including all subcategories) contained 32 keywords. However, the number of keywords in the different categories varied between 4 and 85.

Secondly, another literature search was conducted to delineate which industries scientific sustainability research has focused on. The industries were structured based

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45 on the 2007 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2009), the “North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analysing and publishing statistical data related to the U.S. business economy”. The 2007 NAICS system distinguishes 20 main sectors.

Searches included all major industry sectors according to NAICS and the sustainability search term “sustainab*” as described above. As NAICS does not provide keywords for the sectors, NAICS-related search terms were based on the sector descriptions. For example, search terms for Sector 11 (Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting) thus include “agricultur*”, “forest*”, “fish*”, and “hunt*”. The NAICS categories include Retail Trade and Wholesale Trade and several other industries related to retail supply chains.

Thirdly, the NAICS category Retail Trade was analysed more thoroughly by discussing the content of the papers identified and searching for additional sustainability-related keywords presented in Table 4. This seems interesting, as research articles may focus solely on specific aspects of sustainability without using the general term.

sustainability / sustainable environment / environmental carbon footprint / CO2

CSR / social responsibility fair trade eco-friendly

green eco-marketing organic

Table 4: Sustainability-related keywords

For all analyses, the literature review focused on one major economic online database resource, EBSCO Host / Business Source Premier (BSP). In this database, over 10,000 economic publications are regularly evaluated, approximately 1,800 of which are peer-reviewed titles. Keywords were searched using the field code TI,

46 which seeks keywords in a record’s title, keywords, and abstract. According to Kevork and Vrechopoulos (2009), the authors’ keywords can be taken as an authentic indicator about the articles’ subject areas. They argue that “the keywords are one of the most revealing characteristics about an article’s content” (p. 49). The retrievals were restricted to peer-reviewed academic journals in English.

To secure the quality of the analyses, content checks ensured that any articles were eliminated which do not use “sustainab*” in accordance with at least some aspect(s) of the multidimensional sustainability definition given by Lozano (2008) or use the sustainability term as a general synonym for long-term orientation. One researcher was responsible for this check. However, all ambiguous cases were discussed within the research team.

4.3.2 Analysis of practice considerations

In order to evaluate the development of sustainability relevance in practice, a content analysis of several retail magazines was conducted. To account for geographic differences, we considered magazines from the US (Progressive Grocer, Retailing Today, Retail Merchandiser), the UK (Retail Digest) and Germany (Lebensmittel Zeitung). We searched these magazines’ databases for several keywords presented in Table 4. Extending the list of sustainability-related keywords seems especially necessary for the practice analysis, as sustainability considerations in practice often involve only certain aspects of sustainability, such as environmental or social issues.

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