Sustainability Management and Performance in the Urban Corporate Economy: A Systematic Literature Review

In this article, we cumulate previous research findings indicating that organizations advance to superior phases of environmental management development in order to attain corporate sustainability by the use of participative decision-making. We contribute to the literature on corporate sustainability management and performance by showing that the correlation between sustainable development governance, organizational knowledge, sustainable organizational development, and corporate sustainability, which shapes corporate environmental and sustainability management. Throughout June 2020, we conducted a quantitative literature review of ProQuest, Scopus, and the Web of Science databases, with search terms including “corporate sustainability”, “corporate sustainability management”, “corporate sustainability performance”, “sustainability reporting”, “sustainable supply chain management”, “sustainable corporate development”, and “environmental management systems”. As we inspected research published exclusively in the past two years, only 338 articles met the eligibility criteria. By eliminating the findings that were questionable, unsubstantiated by replication, or too general, and due to space limitations, we selected 93, mainly empirical, sources. Future research should investigate whether corporate governance systems, through organizational sustainability practices and performance reporting, can shape operational environmental sustainability and sustainable organizational culture.


Introduction
The aim of this systematic review is to inspect the recent literature on sustainability management and performance and synthesize the insights it articulates on the urban corporate economy. By analyzing the most recent (2019-2020) and important (ProQuest, Scopus, and Web of Science) sources, we have attempted to prove that sustainability standards and metrics are valuable analytical tools. The actuality and novelty of our systematic review are configured by focusing on a hot emerging topic (the sustainable urban corporate economy). Performance evaluation systems and their associated indicators need adequate capability to undertake sustainability mainstays and their connections. The research problem configured throughout the article is whether organizational strengths and practices may fortify both internal value mechanisms and external infrastructure and settings. Economic, social, and environmental determinants are thoroughly associated with the sustainable development of companies.
In this article, we cumulate previous research findings indicating that organizations advance to superior phases of environmental management development to attain corporate sustainability by the use of participative decision-making. Our main objective is to show that sustainability performance assessment and management integrate sustainability to corporate approaches, mechanisms, and products, thus configuring sustainable corporate governance. We contribute to the literature on corporate sustainability management and performance by showing that the correlation between sustainable development governance, organizational knowledge, sustainable organizational development, and corporate sustainability shapes corporate environmental and sustainability management. What we want to clarify is whether an extensive strategic change in the direction of corporate sustainability in business organizations requires defining their role and limits as a determinant of sustainability transformations.

Methodology
We performed a systematic review of current first-rate literature on sustainability management and performance in the urban corporate economy by adopting Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. The inclusion criteria were (i) publications indexed in ProQuest, Scopus, and Web of Science databases, (ii) being an original empirical research or review article, (iii) publication date between 2019 and 2020, (iv) written in English, and (v) particular search terms covered. Publications were excluded from our research if they were (i) editorial materials and (ii) books. We employed the Systematic Review Data Repository (SRDR), a cutting-edge tool for the extraction, administration, and inspection of data for our systematic review. Gathering and analyzing publicly accessible documents (academic papers) as evidence, we required no institutional ethics approval before initiating our research.
Throughout June 2020, we conducted a quantitative literature review of ProQuest, Scopus, and Web of Science databases, with search terms including "corporate sustainability", "corporate sustainability management", "corporate sustainability performance", "sustainability reporting", "sustainable supply chain management", "sustainable corporate development", and "environmental management systems". As we inspected research published exclusively in the past two years, only 338 articles met the eligibility criteria. By eliminating the findings that were questionable, unsubstantiated by replication, or too general, and due to space limitations, we selected 93, mainly empirical, sources (Table 1).

Corporate Sustainability
To enhance their corporate sustainability [1][2][3][4], companies should be connected with a first-rate operational and trustworthy logistics system. Integrating corporate governance systems may generate equal opportunities for businesses by consolidating financial and economic networking. Significant self-monitoring of the effectiveness of corporate undertakings is the determination to attain meaningful, unambiguous, and responsible stakeholder interactions. Conveying corporate sustainability may validate or undermine company actions while impacting public thinking and undertakings while attempting sustainability transformations.
Employees and their networking impact are shaped by companies' approaches and operations [5][6][7][8] in corporate sustainability. Sustainability standards and metrics are valuable analytical tools as a methodologically robust assessment would prevent erroneous decision-making. Private spheres are instrumental in undertaking sustainability and reinforcing a large-scale approach in the direction of sustainable development. Corporate sustainability assessment is essential for assisting organizations in dealing with sustainability in their operational processes. Sustainability development is integral in the manufacturing sector for enhancing production processes because of its competitive advantage and reduction of climate change risks.

Corporate Sustainability Management
Numerous companies do not integrate sustainability proposals within their corporate approaches [9][10][11][12], thus affecting their strategic management and corporate planning. The consequences of the effective assimilation of corporate sustainability and administrative project management maturity endeavors on organizational success are significant. Project management capability strengthens the ramifications of sustainability attempts, particularly in economic and social sustainability. Management system integration can lead to networked sustainability. An increase in the maturity level of management system integration results in a superior degree of sustainability performance.
Organizations may obtain first-rate sustainable performance by investing in management system integration. Sustainable human components and dynamic management systems are pivotal in bringing about sustainable business development and practices within companies.
To satisfy customers' demands and to attain the objective of sustainable development, robust companies have embraced heterogeneous approaches [13][14][15][16] where success in improving organizational performance has been confirmed (e.g., knowledge management or total quality management). Because of its pivotal role in economic growth, organizations should examine embracing sustainability in their undertakings to attain organizational change management. Sustainable proposals represent strategic decisions necessitating adequate integration throughout companies' action-oriented planning that can reinforce sustainable organizational change by stimulating proficiency and trustworthiness. The favorable outcome of sustainable organizational change has to be developed on a thorough analysis of the obstacles and determinants, bolstering sustainable performance. Companies can gain from the extended business soundness and upsides related to sustainable organizational change management to boost competitive administrative advantage. Carrying out government guidelines, assimilating sustainability in action-oriented plans, furthering sustainable outcomes, and advancing infrastructure backing and sustainable facilities are effective determinants influencing sustainable performance.
Management control systems are technologies of government [17,18] that are functional in turning administrative strategies into practice by the use of knowledge generation. Organizations should assimilate sustainability into their administrative units and on their management levels to bring about sustainable development. Thus, they configure stable first-rate governance backing and a clear regulatory culture to consolidate sustainability on logistical and normative policy-making levels. Modifications in top management and personnel may generate additional challenges in the adoption of sustainability.

Corporate Sustainability Performance
Organizations' sustainability performance [19][20][21] is particularly impacted by board composition, knowledge deficiencies, strategies and resources, competition, and market tendencies. Companies focusing on sustainable manufacturing practices derive sustainability benefits and obtain a decrease in expenses and quality enhancement in various situations. The link between sustainability endeavors and operational effectiveness is mediated by sustainability performance. Organizational change entails maximizing sustainability performance. Strategic directions with regard to the crossing point between business and society shape companies' sustainability performance.
Operational and economic features [22][23][24][25] should be integrated into the objective of attaining superior corporate sustainability performance. Performance evaluation systems and their associated indicators need an adequate capability to undertake sustainability mainstays and their connections, in addition to scalability to organizations of various sizes, the convenience of internal resources, and soundness, regarding sustainability matters. Organizational enhancements are determined by knowledge management in advancing strict external collaboration, embracing data technology-supported operations, and increasing capital. Corporate sustainability is constructively associated with corporate financial performance. Sustainability proposals are more expensive for productive organizations, leading to inferior incentives to invest. A sustainability strategy functions as a catalyst in the link between managerial capability and financial performance while hindering the link between operational capability and financial performance.

Sustainability Reporting
Sustainability reporting is pivotal in organizational communication [26,27], but reporting on sustainability does not validate the accurate deployment of sustainable practices. Operational tools can improve mechanisms between the company's internal participants and connections among sustainability accounting, management supervision, internal communication, and reporting approaches. Organizations with risky routines may apparently only consolidate the sustainability reporting that will enhance transparency and, consequently, cut down company risk. Disclosing information regarding sustainable practices may optimize the market's evaluation of an organization's systematic risk. External support of sustainability reporting is instrumental in increasing the soundness, confidence, and involvement of the reporting entity's stakeholders.
Lacking wide-ranging required regulation and auditing, dissimilarities in internal and external corporate governance processes clarify imbalances in options regarding corporate sustainability reporting [28][29][30] and the associated and intrinsic corporate sustainability performance. Board capital is an essential component of governance processes that assists organizations in enhancing their sustainability reporting routines and performance, being also decisive in the advancement of satisfactory corporate governance. Coherent corporate governance furthers the accomplishment of outstanding sustainability and financial performance, reinforcing corporate reputation. Organizations that have better corporate sustainability performance communicate first-rate information to indicate their increased sustainability performance. Unsatisfactorily performing entities justify their minor corporate sustainability performance by adhering to more reporting criteria instead of directly enhancing their intrinsic corporate sustainability performance. The heterogeneity of board capital constitutes an important determinant of corporate governance.
For a satisfactory advancement in the direction of corporate sustainability [31][32][33], reporting and control should be connected. Companies that have a sustainability report prepared for immediate use, without carrying out adequate control mechanisms on their way to sustainability, jeopardize their endeavors. Companies can integrate environmental and sustainable practices into their perpetual financial decision-making plan by embracing continuing executive compensation frameworks, systematic financial reporting, and adjustable financial decision-making patterns by incorporating intangibles. The environmentally sensitive characteristics of certain corporate governance determinants in relation to sustainable issues, fortifying the decision to advance environmental disclosures, clarify corporate governance aspects that may influence the option for sustainability reporting. Enhanced corporate governance proposals may cut down agency expenses and improve sustainable corporate transparency. A decrease in expenses from coherent resource use, revenue improvement, risk administration, and intangible assets configure business sustainability.
By adopting integrated reporting [34,35], companies are stimulated to assimilate sustainability disclosures together with established sustainability reporting routines. Pivotal in configuring sustainable business patterns, integrated reporting and integrated thinking have changed the manner in which organizations interact and generate value. They enable the assimilation of operations and superior distribution of resources and capital, while market practice has grasped them as rudimentary reporting mechanisms to satisfy stakeholders' demands and not as essential corporate governance tools.

Sustainable Supply Chain Management
A better understanding of diverse stakeholders' data requirements and advancing adequate strategies in order to satisfy them is decisive in handling sustainability performance in supply chains [36][37][38] as sustainability brings about various degrees of ambivalence and vagueness. Consequently, organizations are assisted in approaching sustainability data requirements by harnessing separate or shared processing mechanisms. Decisions regarding mechanisms and administrative structures are important in distributing resources in conformity with the degree of challenges. Diminishing ambivalence and vagueness associated with sustainability data offers a sound strategy for enhancing sustainability operation processes along supply chains. Industry-specific product breakthroughs, administrative routines, and supply-chain preparatory measures can enhance environmental outcomes. Thus, the latter can surmount coordination breakdowns and optimize sustainability and financial performance.
The advantages of green manufacturing practices [39][40][41] are related to a continuing decrease in expenses while functioning as a relevant paradigm in improving environmental, social, and economic undertakings. Administrative and managerial decisions are shaped by corporate sustainability constraints. Supply chain decisions are decisive in organizational and service-based sustainability. Sustainable supplier choice affects supply chain sustainability by enabling companies to develop a competitive advantage. The strategic networking developed between a company and its supply chain partners is decisive in the attainment of organizational objectives. The role of supply chain partners in the performance of a manufacturing company is associated with the increasing character of environmental sustainability problems. As companies react to such issues through the implementation of green manufacturing practices, their striving towards setting up joint arrangements with sustainable supply chain partners tend to consolidate.
Companies' growth prospects are associated with their commitment to sustainability [42][43][44], taking into account the need to access external funds. Because of amplified constraints to be environmentally sustainable, companies tend to make adequate adjustments in operations and supply chains. Such endeavors should be applied in a coherent manner so as to be environmentally sustainable and economically feasible. To optimize their growth prospects, which are thoroughly connected with the innovation process, companies should clarify their commitment to sustainability regarding natural environment issues, stakeholder administration, and business ethics. All of them entail satisfactory criteria of corporate governance and suitable relations with customers and the supply chain. In the extremely competitive large-scale business setting, companies are requested by stakeholders to implement sustainability and ensure that their supply chains perform in a socially responsible way while progressively investing in advanced analytic capabilities to carry out operational enhancements.
Sustainable consumption and production are pivotal to enhancing the operational efficiency of organizations [45][46][47][48] while leading to a decrease in the generation of waste. Robust strengths are essential for organizations to accomplish competitive advantage in shifting business settings and supply chains, where ecologically sound and social characteristics are taken into account by sustainable supply chain management. Large-scale demand on the rise for goods and services affects companies and supply chains logistically and financially because of the intricacies and disagreements related to nonpartisan assimilation of economic, environmental, and social strategies. Adequately harnessing organizational resources may catalyze enhanced business effectiveness by bringing about superior employment prospects in value chains. Entailing stakeholders' participation and orienting the value chain in the direction of more sustainable business routines are prime concerns for corporate sustainability management. Redeveloping their corporate governance so as to be more collaborative and self-regulating, companies should be reorganized into a purpose-driven undertaking. Thus, they articulate for their other stakeholders a sound coherent framework, consequently generating breakthrough and configuring sustainable value creation networks.

Corporate Sustainable Development
The entire purpose of sustainable corporate development is to attain economic, social, and low-carbon sustainability [49][50][51][52] by assimilating all the strategies into their decision-making operations. By embracing sustainable innovation practices, companies can cut down on adverse social and environmental consequences deriving from their operations and, as a result, attain increased corporate performance.
Breakthroughs in outcomes, services, mechanisms, and business patterns have to be combined with sustainable development responsibility. The implementation of sustainable innovation practices is pivotal to achieving increased corporate performance. The paradigms of production and consumption have been altered considerably lately, resulting in social and environmental modifications while bringing about requirements from and barriers to organizations. Thus, competitiveness is progressively associated with the implementation of sustainable innovation management.
Sustainable development necessitates economic growth [53][54][55] without a decrease in natural resources. Environmental sustainability is associated with the social consequences of business undertakings and their environment. Corporate sustainable development is pivotal to organizational strategy management. Companies should make sustainability more vigorous and assimilate it within encompassing approaches, turning it into a business asset by converting robust sustainability strengths into corporate sustainability performance. Resource management strengths can link robust sustainability strengths and corporate sustainability performance. Technology breakthroughs serve as a facilitator for sustainable development, impacting green managers who positively shape organizational performance. Robust companies reinforcing low-carbon community activities and social prosperity further than their economic concerns may bring about superior financial success. Breakthroughs from management and employee involvement in ecologically sound protection routines may enhance organizational performance.
A corporate sustainability strategy is the assimilation of sustainable development standards into business operations [56][57][58][59], thoroughly mediating the link between cutting-edge technologies and environmental/social sustainability. Cutting-edge technologies shape economic sustainability, and their connection is somewhat regulated by corporate sustainability strategy. Creativity increases environmental, social, and economic effectiveness by facilitating the advancements of environment-friendly outcomes and mechanisms.
Creativity impacts green innovation within companies and is pivotal to improving sustainability performance. Creative know-how, in conjunction with supplier involvement, assists in turning business routines into environment-friendly breakthroughs and sustainability performance. Sustainable development represents the outcome of environment-friendly breakthroughs while calling into play creative know-how and supplier involvement routines. Organizations can attain sustainable development objectives when employing creative strategies as a component of supplier involvement routines, facilitating environmentally friendly breakthroughs.
To preserve marketplace competitiveness, organizations regard sustainability development as a decisive objective [60][61][62][63][64] and propose robust approaches for sustainability. Strategy represents the essential component of sustainable organizational development and should be carried out at the enterprise-wide level. The increasing concern of stakeholders in relation to the role of companies in sustainable development is shaping organizational behavior and strategic planning. Economic, social, and environmental determinants are thoroughly associated with the sustainable development of companies while they are developing into critical indicators for improving competitiveness. Companies should regulate reorganizations for corporate sustainability coherently so as to carry out sustainable development by the use of corporate sustainability. Massive compelling environmental and social matters require operations that result in improved corporate action, furthering sustainable development. Operations needed to generate both changes and effects in order to set up a sustainable organization are time-consuming and challenging.

Environmental Management Systems
Organizations that assimilate environmental management systems into their integrated management system [65][66][67][68] have superior corporate performance in contrast with those that do not introduce such a procedure. Corporate green practices may tackle problems concerning the natural environment. Low-carbon breakthroughs are related to the corporate green performance by which companies embrace groundbreaking technologies that enable them to develop products, operations, or management undertakings, cutting down critical environmental issues generated by organizational activities. Environmental management systems enhance corporate sustainability and corporate business, being a feasible mechanism for organizations to bolster business and boost extended corporate sustainability. Taking into account sustainability management for prolonged prosperity and growth, organizations should attempt to derive regional economic upsides and comply with environmental codes of practice while protecting the local ecosystem.
Companies require heterogeneous sustainability proposals [69][70][71][72][73] to orient their undertakings in the direction of enhanced environmental performance. Established business strategies do not reinforce companies' objectives as low-carbon. By carrying out sustainability performance concerning economic, environmental, and social requirements, companies can assess all the demands. Extensively putting green marketing into practice across business operations is instrumental in achieving sustainability performance. Top management engagement, satisfactory resource distribution, and an operational governance system focused on interaction and stakeholder commitment are key in reinforcing sustainable implementation. Operational enhancement strategies and sustainable proposals are instrumental in attaining superior environmental protection, cost performance, quality management, and corporate reputation. Adequate environmental practices may positively shape corporate sustainability performance by cutting down energy and material consumption, enhancing stakeholder involvement, diminishing expenses, and making product quality better.
Socially responsible corporate behavior [74][75][76] may thoroughly affect economic sustainability performance. The precondition to driving corporate sustainability performance by the use of environmentally friendly practice resides chiefly in developing companies' low-carbon innovation behaviors. Environmentally proactive organizations take into account stakeholders' concerns, making increased profitability possible. Social and environmental confines may be decisive in organizational sustainability performance, articulating the dialectic of assessing sound corporate sustainability performance. Environmentally friendly practice is positively associated with corporate sustainability performance through the indirect consequence of low-carbon innovation behavior.
Sustainability is decisive for organizations' advancement [77][78][79] by connecting with their environment and being influenced by it. The environmental aspect of corporate sustainability is essential in organizational effectiveness and viability: companies give prominence to resource conservation approaches so as to stabilize their financial position.
An evaluation of the determinants of sustainable corporate performance may shape stakeholders' decision-making operations. Organizationally constructive undertakings associated with environmental corporate social performance mitigate the link between developing market penetration and greenhouse gas emissions. Organizationally damaging undertakings associated with environmental corporate social performance will strengthen such a link.
The notion of sustainability addresses the protection and preservation of society and the environment for the next generation [80][81][82][83][84], together with attempting to satisfy the intensification of market capitalization goals. Low-carbon breakthroughs can be harnessed by companies of different sizes that may have distinct reasons for carrying out sustainable strategies or processes. Access to a sustainable environment consolidates innovations leading to green products. Corporate ethics triggers the deployment of sustainable business practices in organizations. Investments in environmental and social sustainability typically satisfy stakeholder/regulatory requirements. The sustainability undertakings of organizations are connected to strategic decisions. The socioenvironmental component is a structural and strategic driver of robust companies. Organizations should configure innovative patterns for operational methods and resources and enhance business conditions through social and environmental duties.
By attempting to adjust to unstable market conditions [85][86][87][88], companies assimilate their competing spheres into their economic, social, and environmental components. They thus try to boost their perceived quality by individualizing their operations to attain a sustainable competitive advantage. Groundbreaking knowledge assets and organizational transparency positively influence sustainability-friendly practices. The combined effect of groundbreaking knowledge assets and organizational transparency positively impacts the degree to which a company's cutting-edge data can attain its entire capacity for low-carbon practices. Organizations generating more sustainability data tend to operate in an environmentally friendly manner, be part of noncarbon intensive sectors, and assimilate their sustainability data in their annual financial reports. Large-scale environmental issues have emerged as certain organizations undertake swift growth without regard for high resource consumption and environmental deterioration. Thus, stakeholders steadily demand companies to adopt sustainability-friendly practices.
Corporate environmental undertakings [89,90] may offer a competitive advantage to organizations. Organizational strengths and practices may fortify both internal value mechanisms and external infrastructure and settings, facilitating the advancement of knowledge, creativity, and breakthrough techniques. Stakeholders can moderate the link between corporate environmental undertakings and sustainable competitive advantage. Organizational components and adequate strategy adoption may reconfigure corporate environmental undertakings so that they result in sustainable competitive advantage. Business pattern elements act jointly and reciprocally to influence the networks and broader environments in which organizations operate.
Due to organizational and stakeholder constraints, companies have gradually adopted diverse internal and external carbon governance routines [91][92][93], evidencing heterogeneous carbon disclosure approaches. Companies should consider and determine their adequate internal strengths, converting action-oriented low-carbon approaches into corporate sustainability performance based on ecoinnovation. Both inter-and intraorganizational preparatory measures enhance greenhouse gas emissions performance by the use of carbon management operations and methods.

Discussion
Corporate sustainability assessment is essential for assisting organizations in dealing with sustainability in their operational processes. Companies are requested by stakeholders to implement sustainability and ensure that their supply chains perform in a socially responsible way. Environmental management systems enhance corporate sustainability and corporate business. The environmental aspect of corporate sustainability is essential to organizational effectiveness and viability.
Organizations should examine embracing sustainability in their undertakings to attain organizational change management. Sustainable proposals represent strategic decisions necessitating adequate integration throughout companies' action-oriented planning. The paradigms of production and consumption result in social and environmental modifications while bringing about requirements from and barriers to organizations. Organizations should attempt to derive regional economic upsides and comply with environmental codes of practice while protecting the local ecosystem. Adequate environmental practices may positively shape corporate sustainability performance. Cutting-edge technologies shape economic sustainability.

Conclusions
Significant research has lately analyzed whether the impact of corporate environmental sustainability on organizational performance is guided by corporate governance mechanisms, structures, and performance. Corporate sustainability performance of organizations requires measurement and assessment tools, metrics, and approaches integrated into a coherent sustainability performance evaluation system. Low-carbon breakthroughs are related to corporate green performance. Environmentally friendly practice is positively associated with corporate sustainability performance. By embracing sustainable innovation practices, companies can cut down adverse social and environmental consequences that are derived from their operations. Organizations should assimilate sustainability into their administrative units and their management levels. Project management capability strengthens the ramifications of sustainability attempts.
The conclusions drawn from the above analyses indicate that corporate governance systems of organizations, by the use of sustainable corporate governance rules and operational practices, shape operational environmental sustainability indicators. Sustainability development is integral to the manufacturing sector by enhancing production processes. Strategy represents the essential component of sustainable organizational development. Companies should clarify their commitment to sustainability regarding natural environment issues, stakeholder administration, and business ethics. Social and environmental confines may be decisive in organizational sustainability performance. Coherent corporate governance furthers the accomplishment of outstanding sustainability and financial performance.
As to the limitations in this article, by inspecting only articles published in journals indexed in ProQuest, Scopus, and Web of Science databases in the past two years, we may have disregarded other relevant sources of sustainability management and performance in the urban corporate economy. Future research should investigate whether corporate governance systems, through organizational sustainability practices and performance reporting, can shape operational environmental sustainability and sustainable organizational culture.

Conflicts of Interest:
The authors declare no conflict of interest.