Sustainability and Its Place in the Self-Determination of Information-Based Companies

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Abstract
The term sustainability is understood in many different ways. Its interpretation determines the behaviors of those who want to include the idea into their actions. The question, therefore, arises about how individual entities understand the term sustainability and how they express their vision in this regard. This issue is largely qualitative and requires the use of qualitative data analysis tools. In this context, information-based companies are a special case because they are free of burdens that affect enterprises with roots in the traditional economy. Attitudes towards the idea of sustainability in this group of enterprises are of the most voluntary nature. In the present discussion, the thesis was adopted that the context in which the entity refers to the idea of sustainability reveals the dimensions within the framework of which the entity determines its attitude to this idea. In the present discussion, the subjects of interest were exclusively the semantic categories of the context and not the typology of organizations using such semantic categories. A qualitative analysis (carried out on the basis of linguistic analysis) of the annual reports—a purposive sample of 20 selected enterprises and sector leaders whose activities are based on data processing—submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission has allowed us to identify four dimensions of self-determination in the context of sustainability (the detection of these dimensions was the main purpose of the conducted analysis). Due to the method used, which involved examining the linguistic significance of individual words and in accordance with scientific rules, the requirement of representativeness did not apply to the collected data. However, the data had to show the various concepts currently used (even if only once) by sector leaders in their public discourse. The detected dimensions are divided into two groups: internal, where two types specified as BASE and ROLE are listed, and external, with two successive types hidden under the names IDEA and CARE.

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