Adjusting the DuPont analysis tool within a sustainability context

Abstract

The importance of relationships can be interpreted on a macro scale and understood as the link between any two or more variables or entities and how they affect each other. Determining this can be a very extensive task, considering that the solution could require an infinite amount of pages to explicate. Wheatley (2006) argues that the power in an organisation is created merely by the relationships within the company, and therefore the quality or potency of the power of an organisation is dependent on the quality of these relationships. The question could be asked whether one ought to attend more acutely to the relationships companies have, rather than brush them aside because of a misplaced sense of hegemony, and if there is not a moral responsibility companies have to attend to and mend these relationships. This dissertation proposes five E‟s of sustainability: earnings, employee equity, social equity, economy, and environment. It is argued that the relationship a company has with these various stakeholders directly coincides with the ability of a company to ultimately become sustainable in the long-term. The DuPont system of analysis is utilised and expanded to create a new model. By applying the suggested modified model, which indicates the quality of the relationships companies has with its stakeholders (i.e. the five E‟s), a measure of sustainability can be obtained and employed to improve current business practises.