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= Sustainability Development in Productivity/Performance, Culture with a Triple-Bottom-Line Focus = In most organisational context, productivity is the achievement of generating quality outcomes that contribute to a firm’s mission. Whereas, performance is defined as the act of carrying out or completing an activity, job, or function that helps accomplish company expectations. Furthermore, productivity and performance (PP) link to sustainability is defined as the optimum use of available resources without depletion for future generations. The primary aim of PP optimization in the modern business society is to increase overall sustainability in all areas of environmental, social, economic, and energy whilst fulfilling the target functions of an organisation with consideration towards the planet. The case of Amazon provides an in-depth insight towards understanding the complex dynamics of the business environment that governs sustainability needs whilst prioritizing PP with a motive of profit.

Introduction
Founded in 1994, Amazon is a multinational giant that provides distinctive services across the globe in the form of e-commerce, logistics, cloud computing, web services as well as artificial intelligence. In its inception, Amazon solely operated as an online bookstore and has currently expanded its operations that generate over $400 billion collectively ).

Management of Productivity and Performance (PP)
Effective and efficient management of PP can be categorized into two aspects in relation to sustainable approaches that inevitably aid in profit generation. Namely, supply chain management and sustainable leadership human resource practices.

Sustainability in Value Chain
The Porter’s Value Chain concept created a basic understanding on the system of activities from production to consumption and mediating processes between the two (Ahmed and Sharma, 2006). However, certain authors argued that the porter’s value chain was constrained only to manufacturing firms and had to be further extended to incorporate multinational enterprises in the digital era

Over the years, growth in transnational giants have caused supply chains to be more network-oriented and less vertically integrated. Therefore, Gereffi et al (2005) proposed Global Value Chain (GVC) as an extended study which explores governance structures within the value chain and the 3C’s (complexity, codifiability of transactions, and competence of suppliers). Furthermore, it determines the roles, bargaining powers and implications of its partners across functions and geographies.

Furthermore, Prologis (2021) recommends four steps of implementing sustainability in the value chain of a business;

1. Determining Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and devising strategies to achieve them

2. Outlining sustainable policies for all suppliers and consumers incorporating requirements such as energy consumption, waste management etc.

3. Continuous re-evaluation of every aspect of the value chain and make necessary amendments according to the changing sustainable demands of stakeholders.

4. Continuous improvement and readiness to take necessary actions such as substituting vendors, partners and processes to more sustainable value additions.

Amazon’s Sustainable Development Goals
A significant inclusion in Amazon’s sustainability initiatives involves committing to ethical and legal boundaries in its transactions, collaborating with suppliers and other partners in the value chain that uphold human rights, create safe and inclusive work environments and support a sustainable future (About Amazon, 2021). Provided below are the proposed SDG of Amazon and the actual accomplishments they have achieved. Table 1: Amazon’s Sustainability Initiatives Proposed Vs Initiatives Actually Implemented

Source: Author’s work based on Heizer et al (2019) and About Amazon (2021)

Drawing from the studies of Heizer et al (2019) and Nutburn (2019), provided below are the benefits of Amazon’s sustainability accomplishments as well as the criticism of their GVC practices.

Benefits of Amazon’s Sustainability Accomplishments
Increased cost savings – reduction of water consumption by recycling and use of smarter thermal efficiency will result in a net savings in their processes, thereby contributing to increased profit generation.

Protecting against reputational damage – sustainability pressures have caused criticism on Amazon’s operations in recent years. Thus, fund allocation for reforestation efforts and providing mental health benefits will curb damages done to Amazon’s reputation to a certain extent.

Potential for new partnerships – with a reputation for a sustainable supply chain, Amazon can attract good partnerships that can mutually benefit each other and increase their brand value. For instance, Amazon’s partnership with Mercedes Benz for electric vehicles.

It is evident that the above initiatives Amazon has pledged to achieve, meet only the first two steps of Prologis’ recommendations towards sustainability, which involves simply outlining their SDG and policies for key partners in their value chain. Amazon has not completely bridged their reality with its proposed sustainability measures. Mergen and Ozbilgin (2021) also suggest that Amazon’s SDG are a reflection of illusory promises set forth by a toxic leader. The reasoning being that Jeff Bezos as the founder and CEO of a global giant and a market dominant, has the power to control the “perception, expectation, choices of future players and shape the logic of the field of interest” also known as “toxic illusio”, in its industry. This is only possible with customers who disassociate any toxic leadership with the products/services simply because the company offerings are brilliant.

Amazon’s Global Value Chain Criticism
Supplier relationships – an indefinite imbalance of power is evident between Amazon and its suppliers. Suppliers highly depend on several offerings that cover e-commerce, logistics, marketing and web services, wherein Amazon captivates its marketplace suppliers in the form of strategic control. The ethical aspect of such “predatory” behavior arises due to further complications that arise when the same services are sold to its competitors

System-wide unethical behaviour – In the name of maintaining market dominance, the level of subjective immorality in Amazon’s actions are disturbing to an extent where the company collects and utilizes personal data masses via its diverse range of subsidiaries including access to data from police departments.

Government tax evasions – governments play a key role within the GVC in terms of policies, regulations, investments and taxes. Amazon is criticized for manipulative tax avoidance and exploitation of foreign tax havens (Beslik, 2020). Furthermore, according to Beslik (2020), they hire previous government officials as lobbyists to influence legislations towards special interests of Amazon.

Wastage of Resources – Large scale packaging that contribute to environmental degradation, excessive energy consumption and promoting culture of hyper consumption wherein people buy more than what is necessary beyond their needs and wants, are some of the ways in which Amazon contributes to resource wastage.

Customer relationships – Amazon has always been customer-centric and emphasizes on its prioritization of customers before any other stakeholder. Thus, Amazon has successfully disassociated its customers from the back-end operations of the value chain and any toxic behaviour discussed above. However, unbeknownst to the customers, Amazon exploits them in terms of eliminating competition through its predatory pricing that eventually diminishes variety, innovation and quality in the future.

Sustainability in HR Practices
As detailed in Contribution 4.7, the Cultural Web of Amazon gives an understanding of the corporate culture alignment in terms of its paradigm, stories, symbols, structure, power, controls, rituals and routines.

The toxic work culture at Amazon has long been the center of discussion with regards to its HR practices. For instance, Woodward (2016), debates over the repulsive culture of retaining only those who fit Amazon’s stringent approaches and those who don’t fit are terminated almost immediately. This is further supported by Lecher (2019), who also criticized that PP systems in place at Amazon only see numbers and exclude the human factor of its workforce.

Amazon is doing well in terms of profitability. As evident in Statista Infographics (2021), the global giant has experienced a significant increasing trend in its profitability from 2015 to 2020. However, the challenge is to sustain its profitability growth with the changing dynamics of the business environment. In order to continue profitability growth, the increase in productivity of the workforce is necessary. Studies reveal that there is a direct relationship between workforce productivity and company profitability (Benchmark Cost Solutions, 2020).

Organisational learning and appropriate leadership style, motivates employees and thereby increases PP of the workforce. This theory is also supported by (Guterresa et al, 2010), who found motivation to be the mediating factor between knowledge-sharing, training, leadership style and employee performance that eventually results in increased profits.

With the high labour turnover evident (Scammell, 2021), Amazon has failed to capture motivation as a tool to retain its workforce. In contrast, Amazon uses toxic illusion successfully thereby potential employees, knowing the toxic culture at Amazon, still want to be a part of it. However, the real concern is for how long. In other words, how long can Amazon continue to be profitable whilst evading pressures of external forces.

Conclusion
The above analysis critically demonstrated the management of PP in relation to sustainability. Evidence suggest that PP could be categorized into two aspects (Sustainability in supply chain and sustainability in HR practices), wherein both contributes towards achieving productivity/performance, thereby increasing profits. Additionally, Amazon was used to discuss its SDG and its actual accomplishments towards sustainability. It was found that Amazon is a perfect example of a company generating very high profits by simply having a façade of being sustainable by implementing few practices and creating toxic illusio as a distraction and taking full advantage of its SDG, projections and roadmaps. Furthermore, it depicts the behaviour of ‘grow now, clean up later’ (Ekins and Zenghelis, 2021), in which it exploits resources and its workers at present but makes assertions on its future towards sustainability.

Recommendations
The initiatives proposed by Amazon seem too distant in the future with goals set for years 2030 and 2040. The short-term measures towards their long-term goals are recommended as follows;

It will benefit Amazon to significantly enhance order fulfillment and productivity in their supply chain with a corporate sustainability model in place that will assist Amazon in measuring, managing and implementing sustainability strategies.

Continuous re-evaluation of every aspect of the value chain is vital in order to make necessary amendments according to the changing sustainable demands of stakeholders. For instance, with the prevailing pandemic, Amazon should take proactive measures to assist its suppliers, employees, and communities affected by COVID-19.

Continuous improvement and readiness to take necessary actions such as substituting vendors, partners and processes to more sustainable value additions.

Implementing HR practices such as Mental Health support in all countries Amazon operates in and not limit it to only its U.S. employees.

A performance management system (PMS) should be designed to improve performance but with appropriate regard for human factors (workers should not be made slaves to key performance indicators (KPIs).

Leadership is essential in establishing a performance culture, and sustainability should be included into the performance management system.

List of Abbreviations
AWS – Amazon Web Services

CEO – Chief Executive Officer

GVC – Global Value Chain

KPI – Key Performance Indicators

PP – Productivity and Performance

SDG – Sustainable Development Goals

TBL – Triple-Bottom-Line