The role of agency in Sustainability in M&A transactions

This chapter considers the role of agency in sustainability in the particular context of mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Noting nascent scholarly interest in sustainability in M&A, we begin by briefly reviewing work on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability before narrowing our focus to recent literature on the M&A context. Noting the very limited attention paid to actors and agency in studies on sustainability in M&A to date, we also look more broadly at different typologies of agency in sustainability transitions in general. Finally, we bring these two threads together by suggesting how existing theory on sustainability agency can be extended to the M&A context.