Hosted by Tomas Hult, this segment of the globalEDGE Business Beat is an interview with Maria Alejandra Gonzalez-Perez. Dr. Gonzalez-Perez is the coordinator of the Colombian universities’ relationship with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Tomas Hult is Professor and Byington Endowed Chair in the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University.

In September 2018, Drs. Hult and Gonzalez-Perez published an article in the Journal of Macromarketing titled “A Ten Country-Company Study of Sustainability and Product-Market Performance: Influences of Doing Good, Warm Glow, and Price Fairness.” The article was co-authored with Jeannette Mena, Katarina Lagerström, and Daniel Hult.

Broadly, in a 10-country study involving 4,051 companies, we examined sustainability issues related to company costs, customer costs, and price sensitivities on the effects of sustainability on companies’ performance. The results indicate that positive effects on companies’ performance can be achieved (1) from the companies’ sustainability efforts in all 10 countries studied, (2) even if the costs and/or prices increased by 27 to 72 percent, and (3) by companies implementing sustainability efforts that are 5 to 30 percent above the efforts of the country.