An Institutional Perspective on the Diffusion of Social Sustainability and its Discourse in Liner Shipping Operations

Even though sustainability in maritime transport is increasingly emphasized by researchers and practitioners, social sustainability in this context remains underexplored. Based on neo-institutional theory, we formulate three propositions to conjecture how coercive, normative and mimetic isomorphic pressures affect the social sustainability discourse in the liner shipping operations context. We apply a qualitative content analysis approach to the sustainability communications of the top ten biggest companies, in terms of fleet size, in the liner shipping industry. We conclude that while normative pressures generated through shared expectations and social obligations and coercive pressures stemming from laws and regulations certainly shape the social sustainability discussion within the industry, there are no distinctive results on the effect of mimetic pressures on the social sustainability discourse. Based on these results, we also point to potential future research fields.