Implementation of Sustainable Business

Models to Contribute to SDG 8

Qualitative Analysis of Sustainable Business Models and their Contribution to SDG 8

Irfan, Hammad

Lasker, Nikkita

Maksoud, Abbe

School of Business, Mälardalen University

Course: Bachelor Thesis In Business Administration Supervisor: Stylianos Papaioannou

Course code: FOA260 Examiner: Magnus Linderström

15cr Date: 30 - May - 2023

ABSTRACT

Date: 2023-05-30

Level: Bachelor thesis in Business Administration, 15 cr.

Institution: School of Business, Mälardalen University.

Authors: Abbe Maksoud Hammad Irfan Nikkita Lasker

93/06/07 99/10/17 00/03/08

Title: Implementation of Sustainable Business Models to Contribute to SDG 8.

Supervisor: Stylianos Papaioannou

Keywords: CSR, SDG, B2B, Economic growth, Sustainable business models, Employment

Research question: How can B2B companies achieve sustainable business models by
implementing SDG 8?

Purpose: The main purpose of this research paper is to contribute to the understudied areas
within sustainable development. The paper wishes to carry this out by looking into the ways in
which business-to-business companies can achieve sustainable business models. The paper aims
to study the achievement of sustainable business models via the implementation of Sustainable
Development Goal 8.

Method: An abductive approach was adopted in thematic analysis, starting with data collection
from observations and interviews and subsequently identifying emerging codes to establish
connections between different data sources. In our exploratory multiple case study, we conducted
semi-structured interviews with managers from three B2B companies to address our research
question.

Conclusion: With the help of prior research and theoretical literature within the field of study, the
research conducted presented a number of interesting findings. The study found evidence to
suggest that the achievement of sustainable business models is dependent on the inclusion of
socio-environmental values into the business model of a company.
 Table of Contents
1. Introduction.............................................................................................................................................. 1
1.1 Background........................................................................................................................................1
1.2 Problematization................................................................................................................................ 1
1.3 Purpose.............................................................................................................................................. 3
1.4 Research Question............................................................................................................................. 3
2. Theories & Concepts................................................................................................................................3
2.1 Sustainable Business Models.............................................................................................................4
2.2 Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs......................................................................................... 4
2.3 B2B businesses.................................................................................................................................. 5
2.4 Institutional Theory........................................................................................................................... 6
2.5 Sustainability in different industries..................................................................................................7
3. Method...................................................................................................................................................... 8
3.1 Qualitative Research Design............................................................................................................. 8
3.2 Data Collection................................................................................................................................ 10
3.3 Data Analysis...................................................................................................................................12
3.4 Trustworthiness................................................................................................................................14
4. Results..................................................................................................................................................... 16
4.1 Company Alpha............................................................................................................................... 16
4.2 Company Beta................................................................................................................................. 18
4.3 Company Gamma............................................................................................................................ 20
5. Analysis and Discussion.........................................................................................................................22
5.1 CSR..................................................................................................................................................22
5.2 Characteristics of SDG 8................................................................................................................. 22
5.3 Institutional pressures...................................................................................................................... 26
5.4 Sustainability & Sustainable Business Models............................................................................... 26
6. Conclusion...............................................................................................................................................28
7. Limitations and Considerations............................................................................................................29
Bibliography............................................................................................................................................... 30
 1

1. Introduction

1.1 Background

Businesses have become more than just a simple activity of producing profits and products,
affecting the greater public’s lives in various ways. Evidence of the overarching influence of
businesses is found from the renewed interest in the social and economic impacts that these
entities have, with pressing global issues such as climate change, poverty and human rights
violations catalyzing this growing interest in the past few years (Kolk & van Tulder, 2010). Since
businesses have a role in contributing to the damage resulting from these concerns, they are now
being called upon to play their part in addressing pressing global issues positively instead (Kolk
& van Tulder, 2010). Thus, many business entities have now begun adopting practices that are
considered to be sustainable, contribute to sustainable development and embrace environmental
and social concerns in business operations (D’amato et al., 2009 as cited in Sidhoum & Serra,
2017). These discussions bring the concept of corporate social responsibility to the forefront of
discourse. Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR, is an umbrella term used to define the
different responsibilities that businesses have with the aim of improving the well-being of
society, and stakeholders (Jain & Jamali, 2016; Jamali & Mirshak, 2007; Jamali & Neville, 2011;
as cited in Zaman et al., 2020). These responsibilities encompass business processes, policies and
practices (Jain & Jamali, 2016; Jamali & Mirshak, 2007; Jamali & Neville, 2011; as cited in
Zaman et al. 2020). Over the past decades, the responsibilities under the CSR umbrella have
come to include a fusion of economic and ecological responsibility with moral and social
responsibility (Carvalho et al., 2013).

1.2 Problematization

Since CSR is concerned with the responsibilities that businesses have towards moral, economic,
social and ecological issues, the practical application of CSR may lead to a more effective
facilitation of economic, social and environmental sustainability (Nasrullah, 2011). However,
CSR is also regarded as a global trend that businesses, states and different types of organizations
partake in (Sahlin-Andersson, 2006). Moreover, the concept of CSR has become subject to
controversies largely due to a number of issues connected with CSR, which include the
conflicting definitions of the concept, cases regarding greenwashing, as well as concerns
regarding the performance of CSR on a practical level (Moratis et al., 2018). The combination of
increased attention to sustainability issues, and the controversies surrounding CSR as a concept,
has resulted in the popularity of corporate practice and academic research with respect to
sustainable business models (Moratis et al., 2018). With this in mind, sustainable business
models may arguably be seen as one of the many different strategies that can be employed to
carry out CSR. Thus, sustainable business models are the element that this paper will study in
order to understand the practical implementation of CSR strategy by business entities.
 2

When viewing CSR on a practical level, one of the approaches to CSR is the 'self-regulation'
approach (Piasecki & Gudowski, 2017). The core tenet of this approach to CSR revolves around
the emphasis on self-regulation, with businesses deciding for themselves to which extent they
engage in CSR as well as by what means they wish to engage in CSR (Piasecki & Gudowski,
2017). The Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, established by the United Nations, can be
viewed as an example of a way in which the ‘self-regulation’ approach of CSR can be applied,
since the SDGs were designed as goal-based targets (van Tulder, 2021) and have the potential to
provide a framework for businesses to invest in the SDGs that are relevant to their business
(Ghosh & Rajan, 2019).

The UN SDGs were established as a new agenda to aid in dealing with different global social,
economic and environmental issues (Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development Department of Economic and Social Affairs, n.d.) and have been successful in
shedding light on many different ecological and social problems (Kreinin & Aigner, 2022). SDG
8 seeks to advance full and productive employment, as well as sustained, inclusive, and
sustainable economic growth and a decent workplace for everyone (Goal 8: Decent work and
economic growth, 2023). Companies can concentrate on developing inclusive, safe, and fair
employment opportunities to meet this objective (Goal 8: Decent work and economic growth,
2023). This may entail companies having to make investments in employee training and
development, fostering inclusion and diversity among employees, and making sure that the
workers receive fair pay and have stable employment (Goal 8: Decent work and economic
growth, 2023).

Findings from prior studies suggest that although there has been an emergent interest in the
SDGs, there has been a lack of direction and depth to the future research agenda in this domain
(Voola et al., 2022). Furthermore, prior research regarding SDG 8 specifically, and its
sustainability has mostly concerned itself with the very nature of the SDG itself and critiquing
the nature of the SDG and what it entails (Kreinin & Aigner, 2022: Rai et al., 2019). These
studies reveal SDGs as an area of research with considerable research potential.

The unique nature of business-to-business companies, abbreviated as B2B hereafter, provides an

interesting research area owing to the fact that B2B companies deal with other companies and do
not face the same public attention as business-to-consumer companies. Prior literature on B2B
research revealed a significant gap. The gap is that B2B marketing scholars have had a
surprisingly limited engagement and focus on SDGs, and how despite there being a growing
scholarship in the area of research, B2B scholars are at risk of missing a valuable opportunity to
participate in the meta-narrative of the world, which is important to various stakeholders (Voola
et al., 2022, p. 13). Similarly, research on strategies to implement environmentally sustainable
corporate programs are argued to still be in their “infancy within business-to-business
marketing” (Sharma et al., 2010, p. 330). One of the reasons that B2B companies were selected
to be the type of companies to focus on in this research study is due to the unique nature of B2B
companies. Since B2B companies conduct their business with other companies, they are not as
visible to the public eye as B2C companies, with regard to sustainability.
 3

As demonstrated with the information mentioned before, the scarcity of prior literature relating
to the niche of this research study shows that there is a lot of potential to reveal new information
within the growing literature surrounding SDGs and B2B businesses. Therefore, this research
paper also aims to contribute to this growing literature as well as possibly give practical solutions
to managers and entrepreneurs that are hoping to understand sustainable business development
and SDG implementation with regard to the B2B market.

1.3 Purpose
The primary purpose of this research study is to explore the under-researched area to give way to
new information. The study aims to do this by investigating the phenomena of sustainable
development, by specifically looking at the achievement of sustainable business models through
the implementation of SDG 8. Further, this paper also aims to explore whether there are any
impacts or differences of sustainable business models within companies belonging to different
industry types based on the implementation of SDG 8. This paper hopes to act as a stepping
stone for future research within the topic of research, as well as provide managers within the
B2B industry with knowledge that could help them in achieving sustainable business models.

1.4 Research Question

The following research question encompasses all the aspects that this paper aims to study. The
research question formulated for this study is:

How can B2B companies achieve sustainable business models by implementing SDG 8?

The goal of the research question is to touch upon different issues that are part of the purpose of
research. An apparent issue is the practical implementation of SDG 8 and its effect on
sustainable business models. The research question also wishes to touch upon the challenges that
are specific to B2B companies with regard to sustainability and SDG implementation, as well as
providing a better understanding of sustainable business models and how they can be achieved
by such B2B companies.

2. Theories & Concepts

In order to examine the effective implementation of sustainable business models in this research,
this chapter will provide an understanding of the concepts, theories, and models relevant to the
research topic of this study. To do this, prior literature with regard to sustainable business
models, SDGs and theories relevant to our research will be reviewed. Based on this literature,
propositions will be formulated with the intention of revisiting these statements again during the
analysis section of the research. The propositions that are formulated in this section serve as
assumptions that the research aims to look into, with the intention of concluding whether these
assumptions made based on previous scholarly literature could be deemed to be accurate.
Therefore, this section of the paper will provide the theoretical basis required for the analyses
and arguments that will be presented in the research to be conducted.
 4

2.1 Sustainable Business Models

To accurately understand sustainable business models, one must first look at how the term
business model would be described. A business model can be described as the way in which a
company “creates and delivers value to customers”, and then converts that value into profits
(Teece, 2010 as cited in Jablonski, 2016, p. 190). Similarly, business models can be described as
“the structure of transaction governance designed in such a way that value is created, and all
business opportunities are taken advantage of” (Amit & Zott, 2001 as cited in Jablonski &
Jablonski, 2016, p. 42). With an understanding of the definition of business models, it can be
argued that competitive advantages are important signs of value creation, as competitive
advantages are defined as “the degree to which a firm creates more economic value than rival
firms in a given product market” (Maritan & Peteraf, 2016). Sustainable business models,
therefore, can be described as a business model which helps communicate a company's
sustainable value proposition to its stakeholders regarding how it creates and delivers this value,
and how it balances its profit-making goals while sustaining environmental, social and economic
capital (Schaltegger et al., 2015 as cited in Jablonski & Jablonski, 2016). Thus, sustainable
business models are described as producing, delivering and capturing economic, social and
environmental values from and for a wider range of stakeholders (Bocken et al., 2013 as cited in
Peralta & Gismera, 2021). Prior literature states that any business model can be transformed into
a sustainable business model by incorporating socio-environmental values into its design, other
research studies have presented a failure to do transformations due to “organizational tensions”
or “inherent operational complexities” (Najmaei & Sadeghinejad, 2022, p. 959) With respect to
sustainable development models, one of the major challenges in incorporating sustainable
development in core business strategies is the establishment of business models that implement,
monitor, and deliver on their intended social impacts (Ghosh & Rajan, 2019, p. 352). It can thus
be argued that the successful incorporation of sustainable development requires a sustainable
business model that would prioritize sustainability and create a base for its implementation.

2.2 Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs

SDGs can be conceptualized as "a goal-based institution for international business" (van Zanten
& van Tulder, 2018, p. 210) and since they are a goal-based institution, "the SDGs can influence
corporate policies for sustainable development" (van Zanten & van Tulder, 2018, p. 212). The
SDG framework can be considered "as a combined effort of governments, businesses, knowledge
institutes, and civil society in developing an institutional initiative for realizing sustainable
development" (van Zanten & van Tulder, 2018, p. 212).

SDGs can be viewed as "an opportunity for an institutional initiative centered on creative
thinking that involves increasingly diverse actors" (Stevens & Kanie, 2016 as cited in van Zanten
& van Tulder, 2018, p. 212). It must be noted that the SDGs do not have the force of
international law and that "they were designed as voluntary targets, falling into an institutional
void in which sanctions and enforcement mechanisms are absent" (van Tulder et al., 2021, p.
2-3). Therefore, it can be understood that the voluntary nature of SDGs is significant to the
universal applicability aspect of SDGs. The SDGs can also be viewed as an important guidance
tool for “multinational strategic choices” in situations where such diversity would represent risks
and “the SDG framework (including its indicators and ambitions) is also adopted by societal
 5

actors like governments and NGOs” which creates a “basis to engage in cross-sector partnerships
that can also help overcome trust gaps and institutional voids” (van Tulder et al., 2021, p. 12).
This point is further argued by Ghosh & Rajan (2019), who state that SDGs have for the first
time given companies a framework where they can invest in the specific sustainable
development goals that fit their business. Similarly, the article by Topple et al. (2017) found that
international standards and guidelines are frequently used to guide the sustainability practices of
the companies. This demonstrates the significant position that international guidelines, more
specifically SDGs, have when it comes to the development of sustainable business models.

Prior research regarding SDG engagement in firms found that multinational enterprises,
abbreviated as MNEs hereafter, are influenced by the contexts of home and host countries, and
by their industrial sector arguing that "Institutions, including the SDGs themselves, thus apply
pressure on MNEs to engage with the SDGs" (van Zanten & van Tulder, 2018, p. 213). The
research found that companies are more likely to engage in internally actionable SDG targets
than externally actionable ones (van Zanten & van Tulder, 2018). The research also found that
MNEs are more likely to engage with SDG targets that avoid harm rather than those that intend
to do good (van Zanten & van Tulder, 2018). Prior research indicates that the MNEs have
adopted a relatively narrow role in sustainable development in accordance with their institutional
environments (van Zanten & van Tulder, 2018). Thus, it can be seen how the institutional
environment of a firm can influence the approach a firm takes in terms of implementation of
SDGs.

Proposition 1: SDG implementation is affected by the institutional environment of the company

2.3 B2B businesses

Despite the limited research conducted within the B2B businesses and sustainability, some
studies revealed significant insights into the topic. Voola et al. (2022) conducted a systematic
literature review into the B2B marketing scholarship and SDGs, and found increasing evidence
of “sustainability’s link with a firm’s competitive advantage and innovation outcomes” (p. 20).
The study also found that the CSR industry with broad support from government and community
provides “an impetus for engaging with CSR” (Voola et al., 2022, p. 23).

In their research article regarding B2B marketing and sustainability, Sharma et al. (2010) argue it
is widely recognized that “environmentally-friendly product strategies gain better customer
endorsements” thus, such strategies play a role in bolstering long-term profits as well (p. 331).
The authors further argue that the companies that possess an environmentally-friendly reputation
in the market also wish to do business with suppliers that are also ecologically conscious
(Sharma et al., 2010). Evidence for a similar argument is also presented by Voola et al. (2022)
stating that "social performance by suppliers often positively influences the buyer-seller
relationship" (p. 23).

Proposition 2: Sustainable practices provide B2B companies with a competitive advantage

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2.4 Institutional Theory

The theoretical lens through which the research data from this study will be used to make
analyses and arguments is the institutional theory. Institutional theory emphasizes the interplay
between organizations and their environments (Forsgren, 2017). This interplay between
organizations and their environments is explained as both the adaptation of firms to society, as
well as the adaptation of society to large and powerful firms (Forsgren, 2017). Forsgren (2017) in
their book called Theories of the Multinational Firm, states that more than any other theory,
“institutionalization theory deals with the issue of the political role of the multinational firm” (p.
143). Forsgren (2017) elaborates this by stating how part of the institutional theory emphasizes
the tendency to adapt to the values, norms and rules of external institutions in the environment of
an organization. This is further explained by Muhammad Ebrahimi & Koh (2021) where they
describe that the "Institutional theory states that the environment and social surrounding could
significantly affect the development of formal structures in an organisation, which is frequently
stronger than pressures from the market" (p. 2). This tendency within the institutional theory that
discusses the idea that firms adapt to the environments that they exist in, can be explained as the
possible reason why firms may employ sustainable practices as it is concerned with “the deeper
features of social structure reflecting the impact of norms, rules and routines as
imposing-guidelines in an organization” (Kauppi, 2013 as cited in Muhammad Ebrahimi & Koh,
2021, p. 2). The article by Najmaei & Sadeghinejad (2022) states that the institutional view
suggests that political, regulatory and environmental factors pressure businesses globally to
adopt sustainable business models to mitigate concerns such as those for the needs of
stakeholders with regard to sustainability as well as “social inequalities” and “inadequate value
co-creation” (p.959-960). Therefore, it can be deduced from these prior studies that one core
concept within the institutional theory is the idea of organizations adapting to the pressures of the
institutional environment

DiMaggio & Powell (1983) proposed the concept of isomorphic pressures which shape
institutions. They state that there are three types of isomorphic pressures: Coercive, Mimetic, and
Normative. Coercive isomorphism is explained as resulting from "both formal and informal
pressures exerted on organizations by other organizations upon which they are dependent and by
cultural expectations in the society within which organizations function" (DiMaggio & Powell,
1983, p. 150). Therefore, external regulations and laws can be viewed as forms of coercive
isomorphic pressures on an organization. Mimetic isomorphism on the other hand is explained as
resulting from uncertainty, which enforces imitation (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Mimetic
isomorphic pressures push organizations to mimic practices or structures of other organizations
in order to achieve solutions with little expense (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Normative
isomorphic pressures are explained by DiMaggio & Powell (1983, p. 153) as stemming primarily
from "professionalization" and can be explained as being based on shared values and beliefs.

This concept of isomorphic pressures, proposed by DiMaggio & Powell (1983), serves as the
specific area within institutional theory through which the research study in this paper will be
conducted. In addition to the concept of isomorphic pressures, the link between organizations
and their environment, and especially the effect that the external environment has on the political
and social role of a firm, is significant to the interests of this research study. Therefore,
institutional theory provides the understanding that is required and most suitable for the research
 7

study to be conducted in this paper and will act as the basis of the analyses and arguments
presented in this paper to accurately answer the research question.

Prior research relating to the institutional theory within the topic of sustainability reveals a
number of different things. The study by Peralta & Gismera (2021) revealed regarding
sustainable business models that, “Regulative and normative institutions are widely common in
our society and influence the innovation of the majority of new SBMs” (p. 405). Similarly, the
findings from the study about corporate sustainability practices by Bhuiyan et al. (2023)
highlighted the importance of each of the three institutional pressures in exacerbating the use of
specific dimensions of corporate sustainability practices (abbreviated as CSP) and how such
pressures provide an “empirical insight into the effect of the use of CSP on competitive
advantage” (p. 17).

Proposition 3: Institutional pressures have a great effect on the establishment of sustainable

business models

2.5 Sustainability in different industries

Prior studies show that various types of businesses from different industries are aided by
sustainable business models to achieve their sustainability ambitions (Nosratabadi et al., 2019).
Industries such as energy, fashion, healthcare, food, construction, and hospitality have been
found to have embraced sustainable business models in order to implement sustainable
development (Nosratabadi et al., 2019). With regard to the manufacturing industry, there is a
great interest in the CSR of companies in the industry that can be attributed to the visible and
significant impact of the industry on the environment and the industry has a long history of
sustainable business (Aagaard, 2016). Due to being responsible for comprehensive resource
consumption, companies in the manufacturing industry have an important role with relation to
the global economy, the environment and society as a whole (Aagaard, 2016). Manufacturing
companies working with foreign suppliers have brought forward many ethical concerns in
relation to poor working conditions and the exploitation of employees (Aagaard, 2016). This has
led a number of international organizations to take action in building awareness and establish
rules for workers' rights globally (Aagaard, 2016). CSR is increasingly viewed as an integrated
practice in the service industry, despite the manufacturing industry being most visible when it
comes to coverage of sustainability practices (Aagaard, 2016). A possible reason for this is the
environmental impact and energy consumption of companies within the service industry have not
been investigated to the same degree as manufacturing or production companies (Aagaard,
2016). Similarly, findings from a report revealed that when it comes to CSR implementation
across organizations, service performs below average (Deloitte, 2011 as cited in Aagaard, 2016).
The service industry is responsible for the employment of a large percentage of the global
workforce, and often lead to or are part of the manufacturing of products (Aagaard, 2016).
Therefore, companies in the service industry have a social and environmental impact that is just
as significant as those in the manufacturing industry (Aagaard, 2016).

Proposition 4: The achievement of sustainable business models within a company may be

affected by the industry the company belongs to
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3. Method
In this section, the research design, data collection, operationalization, data analysis, quality
criteria, and methodological limitations will be presented. A qualitative method is chosen to
conduct the research on adopting sustainable business models in order to implement SDG 8.

3.1 Qualitative Research Design

3.1.1 Philosophical Assumptions

Research philosophy is based on the beliefs and philosophical assumptions by the researchers in
order to establish the knowledge of the specific field of study. A good and well-established
research philosophy allows for a well-constructed methodological choice and a coherent research
strategy in which all components of the research integrate with one another (Saunders et al.,
2019). The philosophical assumptions in this qualitative research are within an interpretative
philosophy because it provides an understanding of the subjective experience of individuals, and
it believes that observations are important to understand the underlying nature of social reality
(Saunders et al., 2019). This means that the interpretative philosophy allowed this research to
explore the meanings interpreted by the interviewees, recognized that the nature of social reality
is complex and multifaceted, and also helped to get a more in-depth understanding of the
interactions and experiences of the interviewees. In addition, this philosophy helped to analyze
the findings of this research. In this research, the perceptions of the individuals interviewed, and
the companies involved in the implementation of SDG 8 in sustainable business models will be
examined.

3.1.2 Research Strategy

The Thematic Analysis method was chosen to conduct this research as it provides a theoretical
explanation of social interactions in various ways. For this research strategy, an explanatory
multiple case study strategy was conducted as an in-depth inquiry into this research topic in a
real-life setting (Saunders et al., 2019). Multiple cases are carefully selected in order to examine
whether the results can theoretically be replicated across them (Saunders et al., 2019). This
means that different cases were selected to test the generalizability of the propositions that
achieve a sustainable business model through the implementation of SDG 8. It is important to
acknowledge that this research aims not to compare the cases from different industries but to test
if the results can be theoretically replicated (Saunders et al., 2019). Furthermore, Thematic
Analysis is used with an abductive approach as the research starts with collecting data from
observations and interviews and then analyzing the data by finding codes that emerge from the
 9

participants in the interviews or the observations. Moreover, this coding process enables the
linkage of related data from different interviews (Saunders et al., 2019). Section “3.3 Data
Analysis” will more comprehensively explore the process of data analysis.

3.1.3 Approach to Theory Development

As mentioned earlier, abductive reasoning was employed to conduct this research, which begins
with a non-expected fact “surprising fact” that is considered a conclusion rather than a premise
(Saunders et al., 2019). A set of possible sufficient or nearly premises are presented to explain
this conclusion, and if this set of premises is true then the conclusion is also true (Saunders et al.,
2019). This conclusion is developed based on the theoretical framework of explained themes and
patterns which is a collection of data that is explored in order to understand the phenomenon of
implementing SDG 8 in business models, then propositions were developed based on this
framework, subsequently, these propositions are tested through additional data extracted from
both primary data from interviews and other secondary data. Throughout the process, the
abductive approach moves back and forth, testing the propositions using existing, new, and
revised data (Saunders et al., 2019).

3.1.4 Characteristics

The qualitative research design studies the meanings derived from the words of the people taking
part in the interviews are referred to as participants and not only respondents (Saunders et al.,
2019). These words can have multiple meanings or unclear meanings. Semi-structured
interviews - which are known as a mono-method qualitative study - are used in order to create
the data collection in a naturalistic and interactive manner (Saunders et al., 2019). Also,
non-probability sampling techniques are used in this research which are appropriate in qualitative
research, where a purposeful sampling method was chosen to select the participants in this study,
further explanation is provided under section “3.2.2 Sample Selection”. Additionally, one aspect
of the qualitative approach involves gathering data that lack standardization, which can help
capture complex meanings from the participants’ narratives (Saunders et al., 2019).
Furthermore, categorization is involved in the examining process of the data in this qualitative
research, and thematic analysis facilitates identifying repetitive themes, concepts, and patterns
(Saunders et al., 2019). More information on the characteristics of this research will be provided
in the subsequent section.

3.2 Data Collection

The data collection was both through primary data (semi-structured interviews), and secondary
data (books, articles, online official websites of companies, and companies’ social media).
 10

3.2.1 Qualitative Interviews

To answer our research question in this exploratory multiple case study, in-depth semi-structured
interviews were used with managers from three B2B companies. The semi-structured interviews
allow an explanatory study to have a better understanding of the causal relationships between
different elements, and examine the reasons behind the decisions that were taken by the
participants (Saunders et al., 2019). In addition, semi-structured interviews offer the chance to
investigate the response directly while interviewing, which allows for the building and
explanation of the answer in a comprehensive manner. Another advantage of using this type of
interview is that they are suitable for open-ended questions which we have developed (Saunders
et al., 2019). Furthermore, this type of interview is important for this study which is adopting an
interpretative philosophy, thus, they are essential to comprehend the meanings generated by the
participants on how to achieve a sustainable business model by implementing SDG 8 (Saunders
et al., 2019). Due to the geographical dispersion of the participants, we opted to gather data
through electronic interviews which included both vision and sound features; This
communication platform which is a web conference software (Zoom) not only allowed us to
have real-time video and audio communication with the participants but also gave us - the
participants and the researchers - the chance to stay in a comfortable, familiar setting (Saunders
et al, 2019). Another advantage of using a web conference software was that it has some of the
traits of recording in-person interviews. After gaining permission to record the interviews of the
participants, more reliable data was more accessible by concentrating on the questions, listening,
and generating follow-up questions. Following the recording of the interviews, the interviews
were transcribed. However, this approach resulted in a longer interview transcription time, which
was a setback for the research (Saunders et al., 2019).

3.2.1.1 Interviews Structure

Three semi-structured interviews were conducted in order to gain deeper insights into the subject
of the research question. The questions consist of 21 questions, most of them are based on the
theoretical framework of this thesis, and the others are about the factors that can affect
organizational change in order to implement SDG 8 in the company business model.

The interviews had different lengths due to the amount of data that was being extracted from
each of the participants, the interview with Alpha was 77 minutes, the interview with Beta was
52 minutes, and Gamma was 38 minutes, and they were all conducted through Zoom. The
participants were all managers from 3 different companies. This was in order to get a more
informed perspective on the implementation of SDG 8 from the organization’s leadership point
of view. The language chosen for the interviews was English, as the international spoken
language inside the company was English, and this provides a more accurate description of the
concepts being studied.
 11

The interviews were semi-structured, where a set of questions were prepared before conducting
the interviews based on predetermined themes, leaving space for pop-up questions to follow up
with the participants’ answers (Saunders et al., 2019). Furthermore, the formulated pre-written
interview questions were sent to the participants via email before scheduling the interviews to
formalize themselves with them and think about the answers forehand. The questions, as stated
earlier, were formulated by the authors of this thesis with a focus on the main research question.

Furthermore, the interviews were conducted with managers from three different B2B companies,
where Company Alpha is specialized in sustainable energy solutions based in Jordan, Company
Beta is a medical equipment provider based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Company
Gamma is an IT and telecom solutions provider that provides managed object solutions, it is
based in Pakistan, Sweden, and America. The following table provides a better understanding of
the assigned names of both companies and participants, considering the anonymity of their
information.

Figure 1

Company’s assigned name Alpha Beta Gamma

Participant assigned name Participant Alpha Participant Beta Participant Gamma

3.2.2 Sample Selection

The small number of cases were targeted in order to provide in-depth information on the topic
that needed to be explored (Saunders et al., 2019). Three companies were chosen, which are all
B2B companies. The approach aimed to gain specific theoretical insights from a small sample of
participants familiar with this study's subject, especially because of their high management
positions in the companies included in this study. By focusing on individuals with higher
leadership roles, the research aimed to collect the views of specialists on the research topic, and
ensured they provide relevant responses that can ultimately answer the research question. In
order to find the participants in the semi-structured interviews, a non-probability sampling
approach was chosen (Saunders et al., 2019). Selection criteria were based on participants'
experience with the research question presented. Other factors such as willingness and
availability to participate in the research were considered as they could facilitate collaboration
and communication throughout the research timeline, which ensured the quality of the data
collected. This approach is relevant for ensuring that valuable data is collected for the research
context rather than randomly sampling participants (Saunders et al., 2019).
 12

3.2.3 Secondary Sources

The secondary sources used in this thesis are academic journals and articles, previous research,
publications, official company websites, documents from the company, and social media data.

The secondary data used have been collected for the purpose of providing theoretical research
analysis of the phenomenon studied, and to further investigate the potential factors impacting the
implementation of SDG 8 in business models. Moreover, the finding of this data was based on
the availability of it, and locating the exact data suitable for this research (Saunders et al., 2019).

The articles, previous research, and books were used throughout this research section, however,
only one particular book was used in the method section which was Saunders et al., (2019). The
companies’ official websites provided access to different online data of companies’ offerings,
and management topics. It is clear that the internal companies’ documents are not available
online due to sensitive data considerations (Saunders et al., 2019). However, valuable data was
available on their websites on what they work with, their vision, and offerings from products and
services. Other sources of data were found on the companies’ social media platforms, which
were mostly on training opportunities, collaborations, and events. However, all the companies in
this research did not use social media. Furthermore, ensuring that the data will remain accessible
throughout the research’s short timeline was important (Saunders et al., 2019).

3.2.4 Ethical considerations

The interviews were recorded after requesting and specifically explaining the need to record the
interview to the participants, and that the interviews will be saved safely and be used just for the
sake of this thesis. After providing sufficient information about the implications of participating
in this study, and getting informed consent as approved prior to the interviews, the interviews
were recorded and saved accordingly (Saunders et al., 2019). The participants' privacy,
anonymity, and confidentiality are ensured throughout this study due to the voluntary nature of
the participants, and to to avoid any kind of direct or indirect harm to the participants. This was
strictly assured, which also helped gain more research reliability (Saunders et al., 2019).

3.3 Data Analysis

As mentioned earlier, the Thematic Analysis method was chosen to conduct this qualitative
research as the research question is exploratory in nature. The themes that will be used in the
Thematic Analysis are CSR, Labor rights, Productivity, Employment, Economic growth,
Institutional pressures, Sustainability and Sustainable business models, which will be
comprehensively explored in section 5. Analysis. To establish these themes, a thorough review of
the literature and theoretical framework was conducted in relation to the implementation of SDG
8. This process helped us identify key concepts that are relevant to this study.
 13

The use of an abductive approach in commencing analysis, and the theoretically-derived themes
and concepts are consistently amended and added to in order to explore the data set from the
semi-structured interviews (Saunders et al., 2019). Thematic Analysis provides a systematic and
flexible approach at the same time to analyze qualitative data. It is straightforward, produces a
thematic description of the data, and develops explanations through patterns or relationships
(Saunders et al., 2019). The procedure in which the Thematic Analysis was applied is non-linear
and happens in a concurrent manner. It involves the analysis of data while being collected, and
continuously going back to earlier data and analysis to refine the coding and categorization of
data as new data becomes available (Saunders et al., 2019). This means that we revisit earlier
data and analysis as we search for new themes, and change the coding and categories to make
them fit together under mutual categories (Saunders et al., 2019). Furthermore, we went through
the transcripts of the interviews several times in search of meanings, recurring themes, and
concepts in the data. This helped us to become more familiar with the data and be able to be
engaged in the analytical procedures (Saunders et al., 2019).

3.3.1 Transcription

The interviews are recorded as spoken words which are referred to as verbal data, and then these
interviews are transcribed which is a word-by-word written text (textual data). However, not only
the words of the participants are what are being analyzed but the behavior of him or her, and the
way they said their answers. This contextual information is important for the research as they
report different aspects that affect the outcome of the interview. Moreover, the interviews need to
be transcribed quickly in order to make sure that there is no procrastination involved, and that the
work doesn’t build up. Furthermore, a data cleaning process was conducted in order to make sure
the correct transcription is completed (Saunders et al., 2019).

3.3.2 Data Coding

In qualitative data analysis, it is well known that the data is fragmented into codes in order to fit
them into categories instead of having non-standardized and large data and is used to categorize
the data into similar meanings (Saunders et al., 2019). The transcripts of the interviews were
color coded based on the interesting categories that arose after the transcription in the process of
initial coding (Saunders et al., 2019). This process included simplifying the data and reducing
them to make it easier to analyze them. The procedure of analyzing the data and coding it started
directly after the interviews were conducted and transcribed as mentioned earlier and the authors
were familiarized with the data (Saunders et al., 2019). Coding was performed by labeling each
unit of the data in a document with a code that explained the meaning of the data. This means the
original data was fragmented and regrouped in units of data of similar meanings in order to be
examined with other groups of comparable data. A code can be one word or a phrase, and the
unit of data is mostly detected by its meaning (Saunders et al., 2019). To maintain consistency in
 14

the coding using thematic analysis, there is a need to create a new code for new meanings as
much as use the previous code for a new unit of data that has the same meaning. It is also crucial
to have a list of explanations for each code while coding in order to have a clear and accurate
coding process (Saunders et al., 2019). A coding scheme can be viewed in Figure 2 to provide a
better understanding of the criteria of the data coding.

Figure 2
Theme Description
CSR Information relating to the companies' CSR policies
Information regarding characteristics of SDG 8 such as a safe
Labor rights work environment, equality and discrimination, fair wages, etc.
All data regarding characteristics of SDG 8 relating to strategies
to promote productivity such as innovation, opportunities,
Productivity motivation, etc.
All informationregarding characteristics of SDG 8 on
employment such as employee turnover, recruitment, training,
Employment etc.
Information regarding characteristics of SDG 8 such as job
Economic growth creation, collaborations that help the local communities, etc.
Institutional Pressures All information relating to institutional isomorphic pressures
Sustainability & Sustainable Information relating to sustainability, SDGs and sustainable
Business Models business models

3.4 Trustworthiness
The final section in the methodology part is about the importance of ensuring the quality and
trustworthiness of this methodology process. This section will assess the reliability and validity
of the methods, as well as the trustworthiness of the findings (Saunders et al., 2019).

3.4.1 Reliability
Reliability has two distinct types, which are internal reliability and external reliability. Whereas,
internal reliability points to the insurance of consistency in the research, this means that the
findings of the interviews, for example, should be the same regardless of who conducted these
interviews (Saunders et al., 2019). Hence, internal consistency could be achieved by involving
more than one researcher in interviews conduction, observation, and analysis. On the other hand,
external reliability refers to the consistent findings in the data collection techniques and analysis
 15

(Saunders et al., 2019). This consistency means is that if interviews were conducted again at
different times, the results and findings would be similar to previous ones. On the other hand,
this consistency could be opposed as one trait of the qualitative method is that the data that are
generated from the interviews are pertinent to the time of the interviews and are considered
reflective of the reality of the time they were conducted at (Saunders et al., 2019). Hence, they
are not intended to be repeatable (Saunders et al., 2019). The use of semi-structured interviews
is to examine the twisted concepts of this type of research. That is why repeating the result is not
achievable. However, this should not mean that semi-structured are intended to result in
shortcomings in the research process - rather, robust and careful design, and interpretation of
data collection provide sufficient evidence of the dependability of the results (Saunders et al.,
2019). Here we must understand that the role of us researchers during and after the interviews is
to simplify the process of the interviews by asking follow-up questions to the participants and
keep a clear understanding for the participants about the whole process and the purpose of the
research in order to gather more accurate data (Saunders et al., 2019). This could help us enrich
the research and achieve our primary objective of reducing subjectivity and ensuring that the
interviews are conducted unbiasedly. To ensure richness and reliability, multiple researchers are
involved in the interviews and in the data collection process to ensure minimizing biases and
increasing reliability.

3.4.2 Validity
“Validity of the research refers to the appropriateness of the measures used, the accuracy of the
analysis of the results and generalizability of the findings” (Saunders et al., 2019, p. 213- 214).
Triangulation and participant validation are two techniques that are used to ensure the high
quality of the research. Triangulation is about using more than one source of data collection to
maintain the authenticity of the research. In this case, in addition to the interviews, secondary
data (official websites, and social media accounts) from more than one data source was collected
on the companies that this research studies. In interpretative research, the use of triangulation
ensures the depth and richness of the complex research, as researchers consider that reality when
involving participant’s interpretation of the issue studied is socially constructed and
multifaceted(Saunders et al., 2019). The second technique of participant validation is about
ensuring the accuracy of the data collected by sending back the data generated from the
interviews to the participants to ensure they confirm that it is correct or have the chance to
comment or validate it. It is important in qualitative research to take this step to ensure the
validity of the research(Saunders et al., 2019). The issue of generalizability and transferability of
the findings from qualitative research stems from the fact that qualitative research is mostly
based on a small sample, however, this should not be taken as evidence that this type of research
is less valid - rather, it provides more insights that can eventually develop a theory instead of
providing statistical generalizations (Saunders et al., 2019).
 16

4. Results

4.1 Company Alpha

From the company website, Alpha was founded in Jordan in 2017 and has since then expanded
its services to MENA and European countries. The company follows a success rate in
engineering execution, maintenance and project operation of PV power plants, company Alpha
continues to deliver accessible solar energy, and photovoltaic systems with competitive prices to
maintain success in the long term and offers sustainable power generation as a substitute to fossil
fuels (Company Alpha Website, n.d).

Company Alpha follows the mission of offering one of a kind sustainable engineering and
construction solutions that maximize the quality and productivity of the global energy industry.
The company’s vision is to use locally produced renewable energy that will become a
cost-efficient solution to fight against climate change to then build a stronger community.
Company Alpha offers five different services which are project management, contracting,
engineering, Academy, and innovation (Company Alpha Website, n.d.).

For project management Alpha focuses on scheduling, budgeting, cost control, planning, and
contract administration so that they can later dedicate their experiences to the application of a
good method. This develops into a constructed methodology, training and work efficiency.
Company Alpha contracting business provides development around the Middle East with an
improvement of generating power in the future for the application of customer satisfaction
(Company Alpha website n.d). With company Alpha, Engineering and an extensive global
network of partners, company Alpha leads rapidly in the growing solar industry with the
offerings of a range of services from the development of engineers with the use of internal
construction of experiences and the use of newer technology, tools and market knowledge. For
the Academy, company Alpha provides a training service in product systems and solutions,
where the experts will enhance PV knowledge and provide preparation for a successful
understanding of the solar industry. The company's innovation center creates solar technology, to
then test and characterize what the best renewable energy technology will fit the market so that
they can deliver the best cost-efficient product (Company Alpha Website, n.d.).

The social media of Company Alpha revealed some interesting aspects about the company. One
noticeable detail that was found about the company is that they provide many different training
opportunities for potential recruits to the company (Company Alpha LinkedIn, 2022). This is
demonstrated in posts on their social media, one of which is for an event hosted by Company
Alpha for training opportunities (Company Alpha LinkedIn, 2022). In addition to this event,
Company Alpha has collaborated with a charitable organization and this collaboration grants
 17

students with majors in the subjects of electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, civil
engineering or energy engineering (Company Alpha LinkedIn, 2022). Similarly, Company Alpha
also posted about an unpaid internship position at the company's main office that the company
provided with the intention of training the applicants with different skills that are possibly
relevant to the work done by the company (Company Alpha LinkedIn, 2022).

The information that was conducted from the interview, it is evident that Company Alpha places
a high priority on sustainability. Providing engineering and construction services for solar
photovoltaic power projects is the organization's primary focus, with the long-term objective of
producing electricity with the lowest CO2 emissions possible. By turning digital and employing
machinery more effectively, for example, the business aims to decrease waste in its processes
and maximize the use of resources.

In terms of CSR, Company Alpha's approach focuses on establishing businesses and jobs in the
rural areas where their projects are located. Additionally, the organization offers reliable
electricity to these regions, which indirectly supports resource management and economic
growth. This strategy is in line with Company Alpha's active pursuit of the Sustainable
Development Goals 8 (SDGs) of the United Nations.

While the organization operates in different nations, it attempts to preserve sustainability and
resource management in all of its programs, regardless of location. This includes evaluating
potential risks before expanding into new areas.

While balancing the need for economic growth, Alpha exhibits a strong dedication to
sustainability and resource management. The company is aiming to build a brighter future for
people and the earth by making sustainability a priority in their business processes and actively
looking for SDGs. The participants talked about the business model used by their company,
which depends on a core workforce and independent contractors to reduce liabilities while
broadening their global reach. They also talked about how their business supports fair
compensation by having engineers adhere to regional norms and standards and by giving project
managers position allowances in addition to annual raises and potential bonuses.

When asked how their organization contributes to the development of skills needed for success
in the workforce, the participant mentioned internal training and open information sources as
their two key strategies. Through training sessions, which are rerun on occasion to keep the
material current, they encourage staff members to share their knowledge. Additionally, they
deploy templates to expose staff members to various fields of expertise and consult other experts
when necessary. The participant concluded by describing how their business develops
multitaskers by encouraging employees to have a foundational knowledge of several aspects of
their industry in order to strengthen their core competencies.
 18

The interviewee stated that respect for others is valued in all cultures and that mistreatment is not
a matter of culture. However, the group he represents collaborates with them to build a greater
profile and cover any gaps when it comes to assisting small firms and business owners.
Additionally, the organization has an Innovation Center where they come up with solutions that
can be used internally or sold to other people. To accomplish their objectives, they collaborate
with graphic designers, website developers, and app developers. The organization also helps by
employing locals, donating small systems to hospitals, and offering yearly scholarships for
specialized skills they require in their operation, the organization also contributes to the
reduction of poverty and inequality in the regions in which they operate. The charity organization
and partnering universities in Jordan help them analyze and assess suitable candidates for the
scholarship program. After graduation, the candidates receive training in the company, and the
organization ensures that everything is correct and no one abuses the system.

4.2 Company Beta

The UAE-based company Beta has been in operation since 2004. It is a leading and well-known
organization with a focus on providing and maintaining laboratory, scientific, and medical
equipment, temperature/humidity monitoring systems, airflow control systems, laser safety
solutions, access control systems, and security systems in all the UAE's emirates. Since the
beginning, Beta has grown significantly over the years because of years of marketing success
and dedication to providing excellent services that have elevated the company's level of
excellence in their line of work. Beta’s LinkedIn profile informs that they are extremely easy to
work with and are professional in every way, they serve their valued clients in the industrial,
educational, healthcare, biomedical, and governmental areas (Beta company, LinkedIn n.d.).
Company Beta is dedicated and committed to developing and identifying cutting-edge products
and solutions to provide the best responsive services for its valued customers as the needs and
challenges of the healthcare and laboratory equipment industry change. The company is a
well-known company that specializes in providing and maintaining laboratory, scientific, and
medical equipment. It also provides excellent services in the areas of temperature/humidity
monitoring systems, airflow control systems, laser safety solutions, access control systems, and
security systems (Beta company, LinkedIn n.d.).

The participant's interview sheds light on a number of SDG 8-related topics, including economic
growth and decent work. The company provides monitoring and control solutions to a variety of
industries, such as the healthcare, food processing, and petroleum industries. As part of their
CSR program, they aim to develop sustainable technology solutions that will benefit the
economy, society, and the environment. The participant is aware of the significance of fostering
economic growth, generating job opportunities, and raising productivity and efficiency, all of
which are consistent with SDG 8 aims. The company promotes employee volunteerism and
 19

collaborates with charities to support its programs, which might result in the opening of new
employment prospects. Although the company may not directly create jobs, its solutions help
boost productivity and efficiency, which promotes a stable business and long-term economic
growth. Beta also emphasizes the need to live within the means of natural systems, and integrate
and maintain a balance between different components of the economy, environment, and society,
which reflect the principles of sustainability. According to the participant, their company has a
clear commission and incentive structure in place for its employees, ensuring that their rights are
reserved and that they earn fair wages when a profit is made. This supports creating inclusive
and sustainable economic growth, employment, and decent work for all, which is the goal of
SDG 8.

The company believes that training is the greatest approach to building abilities and offers
ongoing support to both its employees and clients. This is related to SDG 8's goal of expanding
opportunities for lifelong learning for all people and raising worker skill levels to meet market
demands.

The company has strict rules of conduct and provides instruction to its personnel on how to deal
with various cultures and mentalities in order to prevent exploitation and mistreatment in the
workplace. Additionally, the participant emphasized that they had a zero-tolerance policy for any
form of violence, and they urged their staff to report any such events to them by highlighting that
the nation has laws and regulations in place to protect them. This supports the achievement of
SDG 8's goal of fostering safe and secure working conditions for all employees, including
migratory workers. The participant talks about the organization's hiring process, which starts
with compiling a list of the essential positions and their associated experience requirements.
Additionally, they state that they might receive referrals from friends or customers. The
participant also discusses the organization's sustainable policies and how political and social
pressures affect them. They point out that the UAE is an illustration of a nation with a diverse
population, varying perspectives, and diverse customs, making it difficult to satisfy everyone.
The participant underlines the need of comprehending the cultural and societal variations among
other nations. In contrast to the USA and Europe, where maternity leave is more generously
provided, the company in the UAE adheres to official recruiting guidelines.

Company Beta discusses the challenges of defining and measuring sustainable practices in
business, citing examples of poor working conditions and low wages in factories. They argue
that sustainable practices must be more than just a trend and involve considerations such as cost,
reputation, and employee satisfaction, which can give companies a competitive advantage.
Additionally, clients increasingly prioritize sustainability in their selection of business partners,
looking beyond price to factors such as history and reputation.
 20

Finally, The participant talks about how their organization usually helps small businesses by
sharing their knowledge of success and failures and emphasizes an understanding of how these
mistakes are a part of their acquired experience. The promotion of innovation, entrepreneurship
and small to medium size business development is in line with SDG 8’s objectives. The
participant mentions that the organization promotes equal opportunities in the workplace by
focusing on workers' qualifications for the position, regardless of nationality or gender. Even
though Beta does not have any direct partnerships with the local communities they still promote
supporting fair working conditions and providing employees with competitive compensation. In
the interview, the participant also spoke about the organization's long-term vision, which is to
inquire about economic growth that benefits all while making responsible and sustainable use of
resources. The COVID-19 pandemic presented tremendous difficulty for the business, but
nevertheless, it managed to keep all of its employees while still continuing to support Its clients
and give hospitals equipment for free.
Overall, the discussion indicates the company's dedication to advancing decent employment,
sustainable, economic growth and securing working conditions for all employees.

4.3 Company Gamma

A company called Gamma offers both people and corporations access to international calling
services. On their website, consumers can use a computer or a mobile device to place
inexpensive international calls from any location in the world. The company offers high-quality
calls at low costs using VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) (Company Gamma Website, n.d).

Additionally, company Gamma provides users with virtual phone numbers from over 100
nations, enabling them to have a local phone number in another nation that can be redirected to
their current phone line. This can be helpful for people or companies who have clients or
contacts abroad who would want to phone a local number rather than an international one.

Company Gamma also provides a number of other capabilities, such as the capacity to make
conference calls and send SMS messages, in addition to these services. Additionally, they offer
an iOS and Android mobile app that enables consumers to access their services from a
smartphone or tablet. In general, Gamma's services are intended to increase accessibility and
affordability for both consumers and enterprises when it comes to international communication.

The participant for this interview works as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for Gamma, a
company located in Pakistan and Sweden where they offer Internet-based services, such as cloud
services, VPNs and last-mile connectivity for telco operators. When asked to define
sustainability, Gamma says it is the ability to sustain various products and services including
managed objects, cloud services, and VPNs. They make note of the fact that the organization is
an IT solution company that offers managed object solutions, support for troubleshooting and
 21

cloud computing services. Their company's corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy is
based on crucial aspects: customer trust building, support after sales and services, building
customers' products according to requirements and offering add-on services after the project is
delivered. The participant says that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) depend on the
initiative. After a project is completed, they transfer the migration to AWS and leave it up to the
client to decide whether they want to continue working with them. They do, however, go on to
say that the SDGs are a part of their goals and that they actively work toward achieving them.
The SDGs include employee quality and economic growth, among other things, set by the United
Nations

The participant in this interview describes numerous strategies their organization uses to advance
sustainable economic growth and decent labor, two of SDG 8's primary goals. The company
makes sure that workers receive adequate compensation by conducting frequent reviews,
analyses and staying informed of market demands. Additionally, certification credits help
workers in acquiring the necessary skills. The corporation maintains it open and offers staff
direct access to management as well as anonymous surveys to prevent exploitation and
harassment. The organization operates as a third-party provider for various projects and offers
the required resources in order to support small enterprises and entrepreneurs. The corporation
increases employee hiring and offers interns incentives to enter the employment market in an
effort to decrease poverty and inequality. Finally, the company uses the lessons it learns from
each project to enhance working conditions and develops a runbook that staff members can refer
to. The group is helping to achieve SDG 8 through these projects.

In order to promote social welfare and sustained economic progress in Pakistan and Sweden, the
organization must overcome a number of obstacles. It has proven difficult to follow Swedish
union laws that guarantee equality between companies and employees. Additionally, there are
problems with gender equality, but the business is working to keep a balance. The biggest issue
in Pakistan is keeping trained professionals on staff. The business is aiming to uphold a positive
working atmosphere and mutual respect between employers and employees in order to overcome
this difficulty.

The business has a three-step hiring procedure that includes finding general talent, having a
conversation with the candidate, and putting them through a technical project or coding test.
Political or social issues are never allowed to have an impact on the business. However, the
COVID-19 pandemic reduced in-person consumer interactions and necessitated working from
home.

Due to its flexibility to outsource its highly qualified staff, the company thinks that its
sustainable procedures give it a competitive edge. This allows it to meet any budget provided by
partners. To maintain a qualified and long-lasting staff, the organization is also regularly hiring
 22

more certified engineers and teaching employees. Although it is unknown to what extent the
organization adheres to a sustainable business model in comparison to a business model that
incorporates sustainability, the company's efforts to promote sustainability and skill development
help it maintain a competitive advantage.

5. Analysis and Discussion

For the analysis of the interview data, a thematic analysis approach was employed. With this
approach, the findings from the interview data presented a number of different themes that were
discussed. These themes present relevance to the research at hand.

5.1 CSR
The interview data shows that CSR means different things for each of the three companies. The
CSR of Alpha was found to deal with helping out the local communities in the rural areas they
operate in by providing them with opportunities primarily through job creation, through
investing in local businesses and communities, as well as developing stable electricity which is
said to further contribute to the creation of businesses, or factories in addition to facilitating local
hospitals and schools. For Beta, CSR was described as creating sustainable technology solutions
that can benefit the environment, economy and society, as well as encouraging employees to
volunteer with the many non-profit organizations they partner with as well as in their
communities. Gamma, on the other hand, presented a very different understanding of CSR.
Mainly described its strategy as building trust with their clients, completing projects in
accordance to their requirements, and providing after sales and add-on services to them. It could
be argued that their CSR strategy is primarily based on the well-being of their clients and thus,
can be argued to not fit the common understandings of CSR.

Despite the contrasting CSR strategies and implementation of the concept, all three of the
companies argued that their CSR strategy is a reflection of their core business. The various
means through which the three case companies implement CSR are arguably showcasing the
'self-regulation approach' to CSR that is mentioned in Piasecki & Gudowski (2017). With its
different forms of implementation and expression, it can be argued that the CSR of the three
companies is a demonstration of how the businesses decided the means and extent of their
engagement in CSR for themselves.
 23

5.2 Characteristics of SDG 8

The analysis of the interview data found that all three of the companies have implemented SDG
8. Characteristics of SDG 8 are displayed in the three companies in the form of protecting labor
rights, supporting productive activities, achieving full and productive employment, as well as
sustainable economic growth and achieving higher levels of economic productivity (Goal 8:
Decent work and economic growth, 2023).

5.2.1 Labor Rights

To ensure that the rights of employees or workers are upheld, each of the three companies
showed a different approach. Alpha approaches establishing a comfortable working environment
for its workers by having a two-way approach: a professional way, and a human way. With the
professional way, the upper management and partners in Alpha have designed an in-house policy
where different important issues and scenarios regarding the rights and conditions of employees
and other workers are acknowledged, with this policy being reviewed annually by the upper
management, partners, and also by the employees. The human way on the other hand was
described as the colleagues having personal relationships and mutual respect and this was
described as the implementation of ensuring a suitable work-place environment. The approach
taken by Alpha, with regard to ensuring equality and combating discrimination, was described as
one where the merits of the employees were taken into account, disregarding gender, age and
ethnic or religious background. As far as ensuring that employees are paid fair wages, the
company follows the laws of the home country Jordan in deciding the basic salaries of the core
team. In addition to this they also give out what is described as a 'position allowance' where the
company negotiates the allowances and an agreement for how wages will be paid within the
specific project. Beta ensures a suitable workplace environment by providing training and
awareness to their employees on how to work with coworkers from different cultures and
religions. Beta ensures fair wages keeping their staff happy which is done by the means of
providing them with commissions, incentives, medical insurance and also paid vacations. The
approach of Gamma with regard to creating a suitable workplace is by giving employees direct
access to upper management such as COO of the company, as well as anonymous surveys that
the company uses to get feedback from employees. These surveys are also how the company
ensures equality, in addition to annual reviews by the human resources department of the
company ensuring gender equality and a safe working environment. Gamma's approach to
ensuring fair wages is by having reporting evaluations and a weekly analysis with employees
where management and employees sit down and discuss how they can ensure fair wages by
discussing problems and by meeting the market requirements.

The different approaches of the companies when it comes to upholding the rights of workers,
demonstrates the points they focus on. Alpha focuses on forming an informal work culture that
enforces the company’s formal written policy with regard to work environment and equal
 24

treatment. Beta on the other hand focuses on providing training and could be perceived as having
a more formal approach to overcoming issues relating to workplace discrimination giving way to
a friendly work environment. Similarly, Gamma focuses on streamlining communication
between management and employees through surveys as well as through the formal
organizational practices within the company.

The three companies also differ in their methods of ensuring fair wages which yet again
demonstrates different points of focus. Alpha offers fair wages in accordance with local
government regulations showing that the company views laws and regulations as significant in
this matter. In contrast, Beta offers fair wages by providing employees with commissions and
incentives showing that they view the employees' well-being with importance. Gamma offers fair
ways by matching market requirements which shows that the company views the market
requirement and conditions with importance. It can be argued that the role of government laws
and market requirements act as evidence that displays how SDG 8 implementation is affected by
the institutional environment of the companies and thus supports Proposition 1. This aligns with
the information from prior literature that found that MNEs are influenced by the contexts of their
home and host countries and their industrial sectors (van Zanten & van Tulder, 2018).

5.2.2 Productivity

Alpha promotes productivity mainly through encouraging employees which is demonstrated in a

number of different ways. This is primarily done through building a friendly work environment,
but it is also done through monetary means such as bonuses that annually increment, as well as
actions taken by the company that helps out employees and puts them first in the given
situations. Beta promotes productivity in a similar way. This is done by creating a good working
environment and by offering employees different sorts of compensations such as providing
transport, accommodation and an allowance for those who have to travel to other parts of the
UAE for work, as well as monetary incentives in the form of giving employees commissions,
medical insurance and paid vacations. Gamma also promotes productivity in a slightly different
manner. Although Gamma ensures a friendly working environment like the other two companies,
the company is more focused on communication between the employees and the managers. This
is demonstrated in practices such as monthly growth plans with employees and meetings where
employees discuss their activities and progress with managers. Productivity is also promoted in
practices such as those undertaken by the company after each project, where employees on those
projects are supposed to write down what they have learned and achieved during the project, the
information from this is then used by Gamma in future projects. In addition to this, Gamma
ensures productivity by ensuring that only the required amount of resources, in the form of their
workers, are used within each project.

It can thus be argued that Alpha and Beta promote productivity through the encouragement of
workers using different means, whereas Gamma promotes productivity through improvement of
 25

communications (between employees and managers) and resource management (in the forms of
information and workforce).

4.2.3 Employment

Alpha provides a couple of opportunities to young people. These opportunities are demonstrated
through an annual scholarship provided to university students in Jordan with specific
specializations. This is also demonstrated through what the company refers to as "the academy"
where Alpha is trying to get universities to give credit hours to students to get 'hands-on' training
by working with the company. In addition to these opportunities, the company also works with
temporary or 'freelance' workers meaning that individuals trained with the relevant skills and
qualifications have the opportunities to work with Alpha.

In contrast, Beta provides opportunities mainly in the form of providing 'freelance' or temporary
workers job opportunities. The reason for this is explained by the interview participant as being
due to the size of the company. The interview data shows that Beta largely focuses on
maintaining their on-payroll staff more than offering any other new job opportunities. Beta also
provides job opportunities by referring temporary employees to other companies as well.

Gamma also provides many opportunities to skilled individuals through temporary contracts by
providing them with contracts that last for the durations of the required projects these individuals
are assigned to. However, the company states that they also provide such temporary workers
with opportunities to find new projects towards the end of each project, explaining that the
workers have the chance to train other employees, or take part in providing after-sales services.

By looking at the data from the interviews, it is evident that all three of the companies showcase
the capabilities of offering employment opportunities. Each of the three companies also
showcases a different area of focus with regard to opportunities despite sharing a common
feature of providing opportunities for individuals with relevant training. Alpha puts a special
focus on giving young students job opportunities, Beta focuses on referring temporary workers to
jobs in other companies in the market, and Gamma focuses on giving opportunities to temporary
workers to keep working within the company for longer with the possibility of becoming part of
the main staff of the company.

5.2.4 Economic Growth

The interview data shows that Alpha contributes to economic growth in many different ways.
The company contributes to different local economies primarily through giving temporary job
opportunities to the local communities in the areas of where projects are taking place. This helps
the local businesses in the areas and promotes economic growth for the communities where
projects are taking place. In addition to this, the company promotes economic growth when
 26

temporarily recruiting individuals that are skilled in areas that compensate for the company's
limited capabilities. With regard to economic growth, the long-term aims of the company consist
of geographical expansion to other parts of the world. This would greatly assist economic growth
since it would mean more communities will be offered opportunities of work. Beta contributes to
economic growth primarily in the form of the jobs it creates. Beta described their long-term goals
in contributing to economic growth, stating that the company wishes to achieve this by creating
more jobs and offering fair working conditions using resources available. However, the interview
participant did not further elaborate or go into detail regarding how this would be done.

Similarly, Gamma also contributes to economic growth primarily through the jobs that the
company creates. Although the interview participant mentioned that partnerships with companies
to promote economic growth, the company did not elaborate on what these entailed other than
stating that they created employment and decreased poverty.

The Interview data makes it evident that Alpha has a more serious approach to economic growth
in a way that contributes more greatly to different economies than Beta and Gamma. A possible
reason for this may be the general contexts of the companies, with their sizes and the industries
they operate in having an effect on their capability to affect economic growth.

5.3 Institutional pressures

Alpha faces pressures mainly from government regulations, political pressures that affect the
markets relevant to their businesses and social pressures in different areas they operate in. Beta
faces pressures mainly from government regulations and social pressures that can affect the
internal work environment of the company. Gamma mainly faces market pressures and
governmental pressures in the form of union laws in Sweden. The data collected makes it evident
that three companies show that they are affected by their environments. It shows how each
company is affected by a different type of pressure from their environment.

With regard to Proposition 3, there was not enough evidence found in the interview data to align
with or deviate from the proposition. The data in the research showed that all companies'
sustainability practices and thus their achievement of sustainable business models were affected
by institutional pressures. This was observed with the different pressures affecting each company
in the cases and aligned with prior research (Peralta & Gismera, 2021; Bhuiyan et al., 2023)
relating to the theory of isomorphic institutional pressures by DiMaggio & Powell (1983).
However, the data did not provide sufficient evidence to point toward the extent and/or the
intensity of these institutional pressures and their effect on the respective company’s
sustainability practices or their business model.
 27

5.4 Sustainability & Sustainable Business Models

The interview data with Alpha shows that the company is very committed to sustainability. The
company claims to follow a sustainable business model. This is demonstrated through the
company's practices that ensure minimum environmental degradation and waste, and optimize
company resources, in the form of the workforce and otherwise. In addition to this the company
shows a commitment to promoting economic growth, productivity and ensures that labor rights
are being upheld. A possible reason for the sustainability of the company may be due to the fact
that the company that works with solar photovoltaic plants.

The sustainability of Beta is demonstrated through the manufacturing of sustainable products,

resource management (both workforce and other) as well as their commitment to promoting
productivity and ensuring their employees’ rights are being provided and protected. The data
collected from the interview gives hints towards the company possibly following a sustainable
business model, however these hints do not give much concrete evidence, and since the interview
participant did not answer clearly whether the company does follow a sustainable business model
or not, any evidence pointing to such becomes speculative. In addition to this, it must be argued
that the company is only sustainable in certain areas whereas in other areas there was no
evidence found to point towards a sustainable business model or sustainable practices. A possible
reasoning for this could be as described by the interview participant, who stated that the size of
the company may have an effect on its capabilities to carry out sustainable practices.

Gamma showed somewhat similar sustainability to Beta in terms of resource management (both
workforce and other), promoting productivity and ensuring employees’ rights are being upheld.
However, the interview participant stated clearly that the company's business model could be
regarded as one with elements of sustainability and not a sustainable business model. A possible
reasoning for this may be the type of industry the company belongs to and its operations.

The results of the research also found evidence that aligned with Proposition 2 for two of the
companies studied, Alpha and Gamma. Both companies stated that their sustainable practices did
indeed provide their companies with a competitive advantage. This aligned with evidence from
prior B2B literature that shows that B2B companies with sustainable practices gain a competitive
advantage (Sharma et al., 2010; Voola et al., 2022). It can be argued that this competitive
advantage helps in creation and delivery of a company's sustainable value proposition
(Schaltegger et al., 2015 as cited in Jablonski & Jablonski, 2016), which ultimately contributes to
the achievement of a sustainable business model.

It can be argued that in the case of Alpha, the implementation of SDG 8 and the achievement of
sustainable business models is for the purpose of sustainable development. This is demonstrated
in the data found from the interview but is also in line with prior research that found the energy
industry, among others, to adopt sustainable business models as a means of accomplishing
 28

sustainable development (Nosratabadi et al., 2019). It can be argued that the relatively low
implementation of general CSR and sustainability practices of Gamma can be linked to its
position as a company belonging to the service industry. The reasoning for this is due to prior
literature stating how the service industry faces less public scrutiny in comparison to the
manufacturing industry with regard to such practices (Aagaard, 2016). Similarly, although there
is clear evidence of SDG 8 aspects in Gamma in the form of a decent workplace environment,
promoting productivity and creating job opportunities, it must be noted that this company claims
to not follow sustainable business models despite having elements of sustainability as
demonstrated in their implementation of SDG 8. This evidence aligns with Proposition 4 and
shows that the achievement of sustainable business models within companies are in fact affected
by the industries they belong to.

It can be argued that out of the three companies that were studied, Alpha was the only company
that achieved a sustainable business model. Therefore, Alpha can be viewed as an example of a
case where a B2B company has accomplished some degree of success in achieving a sustainable
business model by implementing SDG 8. With regard to the research question, the paper found
that the way B2B companies can manage to achieve sustainability business models is by putting
sustainability to the forefront, like the company Alpha did. Therefore, this aligns with prior
research which states that a sustainable business model can be achieved by incorporating
socio-environmental values into the design of a company's business model (Najmaei &
Sadeghinejad, 2022).

6. Conclusion
The aim of this paper was to study sustainable business models via the implementation of SDG8
and explore areas within this field of research that are under-examined. With the help of the
institutional theory and relevant prior research, a multiple case study was carried out to study the
ways in which sustainable business models can be achieved by B2B companies through the
implementation of SDG 8. The findings from the research have demonstrated the importance of
incorporating socio-environmental values into the business model of a company confirming the
ideas presented by Najmaei & Sadeghinejad (2022). Further, the research fell in line with prior
literature (Sharma et al., 2010; Voola et al., 2022) and showed that sustainability practices in
B2B companies give them a competitive advantage. This paper argues that such competitive
advantages can contribute to the achievement of a sustainable business model. In addition to this,
evidence was found to suggest that sustainable business models’ establishment is indeed affected
by the industry of the company. The research found evidence that the implementation of SDG 8
was affected by the institutional environments of the companies studied which aligns with and
expands on research by van Zanten & van Tulder (2018). Similarly, despite evidence of
institutional pressures affecting sustainability practices being found, the extent of this effect was
not visible in the data, therefore it cannot be argued that these pressures have a great effect on the
 29

establishment of sustainable business models. The findings from this research contribute to the
research relating to sustainable development. Moreover, this study contributes to the growing
literature within the field of CSR, by specifically providing new insights into the practical
application of CSR. Such information can be utilized by academics as well as managers and help
them grasp a better understanding of the real-world application of CSR, sustainable business
models and SDGs.

7. Limitations and Considerations

One of the limitations faced when carrying out research studies such as this one is the limited
resources. These resources can be in the form of time but also in the form of data. It could be
argued that one of the major limitations of this study is the small sample size, due to which
broader generalizations cannot be made to the same degree as would be the case for a larger
sample size. In addition to this, another resource that was limited was the access to secondary
data such as CSR reports, sustainability reports, or documents outlining company policy. These
limitations provide some context to the factors which prevented a more in-depth study.

It must also be acknowledged that there are some contradictions within the results section of this
research paper. These contradictions are due to the information retrieved from the secondary data
via websites for the companies studied and their social media, which in some instances
contradicted the information that was compiled from the interview data. This also paves a path
for why there is this contradiction between the information on the company website and the
employee interviews in the first place.

Future research could greatly contribute to this research in many different ways. Future work into
the topic could possibly use a larger and more diverse sample for research in order to provide
greater insights into the implementation of SDG 8 and its contributions in establishing
sustainable business models. Furthermore, the cultural aspect of this could be the focus of future
studies where the findings could be dedicated to studying cultural factors that can change the
perception of a sustainable business model. Moreover, future studies can use a mixed method,
meaning both qualitative and quantitative approaches in order to get a more comprehensive
overview on this subject. A longitudinal study could be also used for future studies, where these
areas of interest within this field of research could be observed over time to understand the
impact of different factors on the findings.
 30

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Appendices

Appendix I
Interview questions:

1. What is your position in the organization?

2. How do you define sustainability from your perspective?
3. How would you describe your organization and what they do?
4. What is your main corporate social responsibility strategy?
5. Are SDGs an actively sought-after goal for your organization?
6. How does this organization balance the need for economic growth with the need to
promote resource management?
7. How does your organization create jobs and promote fair wages?
8. How does your organization help people develop the skills they need to succeed in the
workforce?
9. What are the tactics employed by your organization to make sure people are not exploited
or mistreated in the workplace?
10. How does your organization help support small businesses and entrepreneurs?
11. What is your organization doing to reduce poverty and inequality in the areas where it
operates?
12. Can you give an example of a project or initiative your organization has undertaken to
improve working conditions for employees?
13. How does your organization work to ensure that all workers, regardless of gender or
ethnicity, have equal opportunities for advancement?
14. Can you discuss any partnerships or collaborations your organization has formed with
local communities or other organizations to promote decent work and economic growth?
15. What is the long-term vision of your organization in terms of promoting decent work and
economic growth?
16. Can you discuss any challenges your organization has faced in promoting sustainable
economic growth and social welfare, and what measures have you taken to address these
challenges?
17. How does the organization manage the recruitment of employees?
18. To what extent would you argue that your organization's sustainable practices are affected
by social and political pressure?
19. To what extent would you argue that your organization is following a sustainable
business model in comparison to a business model that has elements of sustainability?
20. How do you think that your organization's sustainable practices give it a competitive
advantage?
21. How does the work environment within your organization affect employee turnover?
 34

Appendix II
Alpha Company, Participant Alpha

Interviewer:

OK so we started recording and before we start, I would like to introduce myself, I'm Hammad
Irfan and I'm Nikkita Lasker, so we will be conducting the interview with you for a research
study.

start with the questions:

Interviewer:

I'll start with the first question so could you introduce yourself briefly, and tell us more about
what your organization does?

Participant:

Hello my name is Participant Alpha, I'm the head of engineering and partner at Alpha
company, Alpha, is a service-providing company related to solar photovoltaic power
projects, so we provide engineering and construction services along with project
management services specifically and only for solar photovoltaic projects.

Interviewer:

All right, could you explain a little bit more briefly about your position in this organization?

Participant:

so on I'm the head of engineering, I run the design team where in that division we do all
kinds of designs required for a fully functional solar photovoltaic project covering all the
disciplines from electrical, communication and control of several mechanical MEP
anything.. so, I do run the team and at the same time I'm a partner in the company.

Interviewer:
 35

all right, how do you define sustainability from your own perspective?

Participant:

so technically as I said we do provide for solar photovoltaic projects right, our ultimate
goal is always sustainability it's always generating electricity with the lowest possible
CO2 emission in terms of generation itself technically Zero CO2 emission and within our
plan right, so this is our ultimate goal and within our process, we always try to reduce,
let's say paper works in terms of printing and all of these things we try to go digital we
always try to develop some cloud-based solutions which are used internally in order to
help us and then we go into let's say within our construction plan let's say and project
management plan we always try to optimize the most of our machinery we always need
machinery to do the installation we cannot get rid of the machinery and unfortunately so
however, we try to optimize that use of machinery in order to reduce the emissions so as
an example we tried to use one truck to deliver multiple items instead of 1 truck per item

Interviewer:

you could say that you define sustainability as a way of getting the most out of the resources that
you have.

Participant:

Exactly, for sure and here I'm talking about purely environmental sustainability.

Interviewer:

Okay, understand that brings me to the next question.

What is your main corporate social responsibility strategy?

Participant:

look here we have two aspects, OK again I will come back to our core business which is
solar photovoltaic, where usually our projects are located in rural areas right, so we don't
have the privilege of working in nice areas, we are always thrown in the middle of the
desert, forest, I don't know where, like always in the middle of nowhere, usually these
areas the local communities are pretty let's say with a certain probability level so and this
we always try to optimize the most of the available resources so with that, we create job
we create businesses in some cases so let's say standard machinery if it's available in the
 36

area we try to rent it from the area and unskilled laborers mainly unskilled labor because
our work is pretty technical so we cannot always rely on local communities on skilled
people we always rely on unskilled people we try to give them the opportunity to work
depends on the size of the project and the duration of the project sometimes we try to do
it like a circular movement, right so one guy works for a month and another guy works
for another month, so we try to keep as much number of people working as possible and
during at the later stage during the operation and maintenance system duration we always
try to get people with more stable job at that time as a different output of our project we
always provide such areas with stable electricity which is indirectly from us helps them to
create businesses maybe small factories where they can rely on kind of standard have
their facilities critical facilities like hospitals schooling always supplied with stable and
high quality electrical power.

Interviewer:

Could you say that SDGs are an actively sought-after goal for your organization?

Participant:

Yeah, so again with the SDGs it's always back to our kind of business where we. OK first
thing we don't have a big team OK we have a small team which is 100% available and
then we rely on an army of freelancers, right so that army of freelancers always also helps
us to keep our business sustainable and like on a financial level let's say level stable
competitive as well so that's the first thing the second thing as I said trying to digitalize
things and digitalize processes and the use of the machinery in order to turn the lowest
CO2 emissions

Interviewer:
I wanted to ask another question kind of relating to the company could you explain how many
countries you guys operate in?

Participant:

the company has three offices our headquarters in Jordan we do have a branch in
Germany and we do have a sister company in United Arab Emirates in Abu Dhabi that's
our offices however, our geographical coverage as projects we’ve worked in Morocco,
Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and currently we are expanding
our coverage to cover Europe and more of African countries southern African and at the
moment I'm working with the client on the project in Mozambique for example, at a
 37

certain point we were asked to go to Bolivia so for us geography is not the limit we can
go anywhere everywhere as long as the area passes our risk management evaluation.

Interviewer:

How does this organization balance the need for economic growth with the need to promote
resource management?

Participant:

so yeah with this again our business model on relying on a core team with the key
responsibilities, OK with creating the model of resources, sitting available at any moment
with this we keep our liabilities low in terms of let's say running costs OK and the
freelancers are on our payroll once the project is there once the project is done they are
out, so with this we keep our economic growth additionally expanding our geographical
office coverage I would say like just presents in multiple locations that also help us along
with relying on the local communities in the project area I would say not only the country
even in the area with this we keep ourselves stable and with the possibility to grow and
we have team managing of all of our resources

Interviewer:

That brings me to the next question you kind of touched upon this a little bit.
How does your company create jobs and promote fair wages?

Participant:

again the create jobs as clear so, we always try to find multiple projects that help us like
at the moment we are working on four to five opportunities at the same time so with this
we will need more and more people, with the fair wages so here, and our headquarters in
Jordan OK we do follow the local requirements and standards in Jordan specifically for
engineers where we have the engineering association which sets a minimum salary per
position depending on the experience so on and so forth, that's like that's what we call a
basic salary and I'm here talking purely about our core team, OK then we do have what
we call the position allowance which, let's say Irfan you are a project manager for me
your basic salary let’s say a dollar for example OK now as you are assigned to Project X
you will receive let's say another dollar for example monthly for being project manager
of that specific project then let's say I need to deploy you to the project site which is
outside of Jordan or outside of your city let's say I'm deploying into Sudan for example I
will tell you OK depending on the agreement on hourly agreement daily agreement
 38

weekly agreement monthly agreement depends on how the structure works what's the
project requirements, I’ll tell you OK for each day for example you will stay in Sudan I
will give you a half a dollar extra right, again the numbers are just to explain the
structure, as whole percentages is nothing it just explain the structure so that's one thing
and then and in some cases depending on the performance of the company overall there
might be some extra bonuses but only annual increment there is a process as per the local
code and frankly speaking that what keeps us again competitive and sustainable from an
economic perspective.

Interviewer:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense actually, this brings me to my next question.
How does your organization help people develop the skills they need to succeed in the
workforce?

Participant:

Yeah, we have two main Aspects, right first; We are a company which is working on the
basis of open information sources. Right. So, there's nothing you know, I don't. Know
‘full stop’.
Right, If needed and then right? So, if I come and ask you. OK, Irfan How do I do this?
You will let me know how I do. Do I do this right?
second, we do internal training, so we do In. How, so I’m an Expert in something you are
an expert in something we share it. So, we do more of these let’s say one hour, 2 hours of
training per subject and like we keep that rolling, in some cases, we start repeating these
courses in order to refresh the information Because I mean, you are now the best
designer, OK, but you forget some fundamentals because you're just working on more
detailed things. So, we always try to keep this refreshing and for specific items, we go out
so, For example, now we are working on a training course for our team, The energy
storage for us, none of us has experience in that. I've never worked with that, Right, So
now we are working on a presentation for them from it's not even a guy with experience,
He's a guy with a specialist In that field, right so. It's not someone who did a couple of
projects. No, he is someone Who knows More than just the details of everything, and at
the same time, we also get people to work on the templates.

So as a service provider, it's in my best interest to just finish right and in order to finish as
fast as possible with the highest quality and let's say standard output. I try to do templates
right so we get people to do templates and when you are doing templates you start to get
 39

into all kinds of issues and troubles, You need to read, You need to watch videos, You
need to look for, Information now uses chat GPT, I don't know what to, Find a solution
and, Come up, come up with that template, I do have people with mechanical engineering
backgrounds and now they are doing templates for cable sizing purely electrical, So, you
are exposed that's another thing I want to touch bases on that, we don't We train people to
be multitasking, so if you are an electrical engineer, you need to know some civils (civil
engineering), you need to know some control and instrumentation, You need to know
some project management, you need to know some of everything, with your speciality
and say let's say electrical engineering, your core electrical engineering but you need to
have it like this the basics of the rest of the spectrum cover.

Interviewer:

You have to help them work with their core.

Participant:

Yeah, exactly I'm from an electrical background, but I don't consider myself an electrical
engineer, I'm, I know civil, I know some, Electrical some of, everything and I can
manage the show so that's all.

Interviewer:

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah,

Thank you. Now this might be a little bit different a little bit but. What are the tactics employed
by your organization to make sure people are not exploited or mistreated in the workplace?

Participant:

OK, let's say we have a professional aspect of this, and we have a human aspect of this
question, right, our professional aspect, we have a policy which states everything is OK,
it's an in-house policy, now The beauty of this policy, is it wasn't prepared by an HR
organization or something I don't know where it was prepared by us, and it has an annual
review by us, OK, so we try to always cover all kinds of scenarios, but as you know you
cannot have like 100% of the policy, In none of our projects, let's say we had a car
accident, for example, OK, now in this project, we had a car accident. Our policy doesn't
cover the car accident, because we never had one before, right, this is just a hypothetical
example That's not even a real example, right.
 40

So, every year in December, we sit all together, and we start reading it section by section
And yeah, in this project we faced this scenario and how this scenario should be tackled
so, we tried to include this policy, a non-smoking, non no alcoholic, no drugs policy is
like mental liver at all and then respect between the team, now here, where the human
side starts, kicking in we are friends Like many of us, even we have family relationships,
my wife and my colleague's wife are friends or anything we have like a friendly
atmosphere, there So, with this kind of atmosphere, we ensure that nobody is bullying
anyone, or nobody is mistreating anyone, and from the management level the policy has
everything stated.

Interviewer:

So, you say it's kind of like an unwritten rule like it's more of like an ethical rule to make sure
that everyone feels respected.

Participant

In the policy, there are sections that say you are not, you should treat your that team in a
proper manner, you should come clothing well You should...etc., but, let's say the
implementation of this, it's not by the policy, it's more by us because we just respect each
other as friends, but the policy covers that 100% like with clear statements, without any
kind of interpolations.

Interviewer:

OK
So, it's a mix of the policy as well as the worker's ethics.

Participant:

Oh yeah, I am a guy who believes in a statement which says: that you cannot rely on the
law Because, in the end, people will find a way to turn around that law if you don't make
people write the law and you don't make people from inside, implementing the law your
law will fail for sure.

Interviewer:

Could this arguably be because of having a similar culture to your coworkers?

 41

Participant:

That's something nevertheless, we've worked with different cultures, we've worked with
Chinese, we've worked with Indians, we've worked with Europeans, we've worked with
Americans, even within European, like different countries, Spain, Portugal, Germany,
eastern Europe countries, Pakistani, Bangladesh like for me, my contact list is more of a
world map if you see it.

Interviewer:

so, the different cultures and doesn't really affect this mistreatment or anything you'd say?

Participant:

yeah, for sure, in the end, it's not a cultural issue, each culture says you need to respect
the other party full Stop, so there's no culture that says that you can mistreat anyone.

Interviewer:

I understood. That's good.

Now shifting to another, Question that's not like the first part.
How does your organization help support small businesses and entrepreneurs?

Participant:

for these small businesses, as I stated before, specifically when we try to move between
countries and areas these small businesses in the project area, right, so, for example, Irfan
has two excavators there he rents them usually I try to get these excavators from him just
to support him, we always try to partner with small companies as well in order to just
create a stronger, let's say profile, so we are strong in this we have a slight weakness in
that So, we try to partner with someone to a small company to cover this small aspect of
our weakness so, that's Two ways of small businesses

Now, entrepreneurs we do have an Innovation centre in our company I don't want to

sound nerd, but this is our fun zone where we just, I think very far away from the box, not
even out-of-the-box we try to come up with solutions which either can help us, so it's
only for our internal use, or something we can let's say, sell for people, other people in the
field where they can use it, now with these kinds of programs we work on, we sometimes
need, let's say app Developers, or website developers and a guy who knows one thing in
 42

the world, which is, let’s say, Excel for example so just to do something on it so we try to
get these guys here and there sometimes logo designs, stuff like that so, we did one
project which is up and running and it's a service we are serving at the moment, I don't
want to get into the details with you So, it's a verification test, OK ,where the support of
the foundation we put the steel structure which we used to fix the modules on there's the
theoretical calculation for that and then we go to this site to verify that calculation is right
to make sure that calculation is optimized so here I think another way we try to do
sustainability where we try to minimize the amount of steel, right, So, OK, that's a cost
thing for our clients, but also on the ultimate level on the environmental level I'm just
creating less steel, that's what I can do for that right So, how other people do it? We all
follow the same standard. We are 100% on the same standard, but other people, they
come with machinery, you know, and excavators or something like that powerful and start
pulling the foundation out of the ground after installing it right? So, for us we don't do
that we have like steel trippers and a hydraulic pump and then that pump has an encoder
which is connected to a mobile application where you're just like witnessing the test spot
so, we went sustainable, we optimized resources, we expedited the test, let's say the
progress of performance and at the same time with the entrepreneurs we got someone to
do this application For us to reach Version 1213, I don't know which version they run
today

Interviewer:

yeah, that makes sense.

So, you could say that your business uses these small/smaller companies and entrepreneurs
mainly to help your company in the places?

Participant:

yeah.
Covering small spots, which like very specific things, it doesn't make any sense to hire an
app developer for something I might use once every three years, right?

Interviewer:

Yeah, and it makes sense, since you're a smaller company at the moment.

Participant:

Yeah, well, we are like 10 to 15 guys in the company, So, as a core team.
I think we have 30 engineers on standby and our technicians.
 43

Interviewer:

OK, so that brings me to my next question.

You've kind of mentioned it in the last question and even before you touched upon this topic, but
it's a little more specific.
What is your organization doing to reduce poverty and inequality in the areas where it operates?
So more specifically to the local economy.

Participant:

Yeah, the local economic, I think, we've touched bases on that and the previous questions,
small businesses trying to hire people from there, in some projects we even tried to give
the local small thing, let's say a small system to energize their hospital, for example, these
small tiny things where we tried to share, Let's say our humanity with these guys, Uh, we
do also provide an annual scholarship in Jordan for specific, specializations, which are
technically something we need in our operation, right, this comes through a certified
charity organization, NGO and partnering with a couple of universities in Jordan, How
this works is that people go to that charity organization, apply for that grant, and for that
scholarship we analyze, we assess and we say, OK, this guy seems to be suitable and he
really needs to do that, of course, we use the expertise of the charity organization to
ensure that everything is really correct, No one is trying to abuse the system and at the
later, like part of our, let's say Scholarship after he graduates, he gets into our company, in
Jordan. There's a very strict program of training that's also something we always support
with, we try to get as we, I mean, I do have an example, I have one lady in my team and
like to introduce her as an engineer, although she's still two years before finalizing her
engineering certificate, but, she was like top-notch like, I couldn't let her go I said no,
she's not going anywhere she's staying with us and she's studying and working with us, so
if she has an exam today and she doesn't come, That's OK So, we try to keep people. at
least is not the spread at least not So that's the minimum to always keep them like hey,
life is still nice you can get something.

Interviewer:

And I thought your answer was interesting because it points to a number of different things and
mainly, you're trying to say that basically, your company uses… This, you know, like since
there's poverty in the area or, you know, there are underprivileged people, you guys are to help,
I'm doing partnerships with an NGO to help not only give them jobs but also it helps your
company since you are training these people with the scholarship program, In a way.
 44

Participant:

Yeah, exactly, So, look, we are not that kind of people who believe in giving money
away, right, So, I wouldn't give you money, I would give you a job with maybe a small
pay, OK, but, There’s a goal, I'm In human right so, he's not poor, he got covered covers
his minimum requirement, but I'm not looking about today if he's covering I'm looking
about tomorrow what he's doing, where he would be tomorrow.

Interviewer:

Yeah, and also, I really like the fact that you mentioned with this program you're also giving
many younger people who are trained in these specializations opportunities for the job.

Participant:

Yeah, and in this case, our training would not be theoretical, right, I would not go into the
science of it I will go on how to do it, OK, I don't care how the module work, I care how
to design the layout That's the mentality so, it is an experience so, I give them real
projects, not just a research paper on which is the best module technology, for example,
No, no real newer project for me.

Interviewer:

that brings me to our next question, which is.

Can you give an example of a project or initiative your organization has undertaken that
improves the working conditions for your employees? This may be a little specific, yeah.

Participant:

Yeah, look again, the concept that we are working on, let's say a friendly environment
here, right, So that helps us to keep the relationship between us and our employees open,
right, I mean, I hate to lose an employee In my team, right, But as an example, one of my
team, She came to me, and her husband wants to move to Qatar, for example, at that time,
four or five months, and I sat with her and I tried to like, go online with her and give her
as much information about where she's moving and what to expect, and what…etc., so,
I'm not her manager at that point, I was her friend, right, so watch out for this watch out
for that especially I live In the UAE, It's almost the same of Qatar, so there is some
information I can transfer, and the last statement in that session was this discussion never
happened, so if you go to Qatar, you have one month notice, just send me an e-mail with
 45

that, if you don't want to go to Qatar this discussion never happened, and like I will not
even come back to it at any point, so this like, she felt home with us, right, so, she was
OK I'm stable with these guys I don't know other organization might say, well, yeah, you
might go OK, no problem and then they start looking for a replacement and, I won't trust
myself by having someone on my thing like that but for us, no, it was different.
One of our colleagues, unfortunately, had a health issue, excess weight and It was a pretty
big issue for him we also helped him with his medical treatment so, one of the surgeries,
he did was technically financed by us, OK and here again, I want to touch bases on
something which we do annually, which is the policy review so, that in the end you are an
employee and you are setting the rules you want to follow right.

Interviewer:

So, you say that the employees do have a certain level of control?

Participant:

yeah, of course, and you would imagine the employee would ask for something like on
the top of Everest Mountain and the management would like to go as low as possible in, a
way to maintain financial stability and to also satisfy the employee at the same time, so
it's not everything they ask what they get it because we have a limit on our financials,
right?
We cannot go up that limit.

Interviewer:

Now going to the next question, which might be similar to the previous question that we've asked
before, so you might have to repeat yourself.
How does your organization work to ensure that all workers, regardless of gender or ethnicity,
have equal opportunities for advancement?

Participant:

First gender, we are open, so and you, might not like there are certain activities where a
certain gender performed better than another gender, so we try to take, because we have
some construction works, we have some heavy works so, we try to take that into
consideration and especially within the community where we are living in, so that's, and
something even if we want to disregard that idea, the community would not help us with
that, geographically, and religious-wise, we have I mean, OK, at the moment we are
mainly Jordanians and, but we have nothing about Tunisians we, as I said, we've worked
 46

with Chinese, Indian and Pakistani, Bangladesh, Americans, Europeans, every, every
everyone. equal opportunity, It's a competition with us to prove yourself you take it, You
don't prove yourself you simply don't take it. Age, our field is pretty new, Right, so it's
not something like its traditional construction where it comes back hundreds and
hundreds of years back, but even for that for us, we have, I think, the oldest one is *Y* he
is 55 years old, and we have somebody, at like 24 years old.
We, covered the full spectrum, right? So, 55 is like five years away from his retirement
age so we have the spectrum, so we don't really look Into anything. For me, I don't even
look into the CVs sometimes so, you can write whatever you want on the CV and the
interview will expose everything right, so we don't filter based on, and I think, sometimes
we filter based on geographical location, I mean, I have a project in a certain area I'd
rather have someone from that area because he knows how to manage the life and the
work in that area, but, If I find someone in Jordan, I'll send them no problem I have no
issues with that If I someone in Europe, I will. Send them now we are actually recruiting
I've contacted people in India, and Pakistan and Just finished the Phone with Portugal,
and Spain these are the countries which have like very experienced people in our field,
right, that's why I'm focusing on these countries because that's where the specialities
come from, so yeah, we are open on.

Interviewer:

OK, so you're mainly when you're recruiting people and that, you know, you're mainly working
to work with People based on merit, rather than any other.

Participant:

Look, I have a presentation, OK, in which I list all of the questions, and usually, in front
of me I have a piece of paper where I mark, OK, this question (5,4,3,2,1) that’s it full
stop.
And even our HR, only on salary, they come to discuss, like yes or no on that person, but
other than that, usually on salary, I do close it before even going to the technical
interview Right, so once the technical interview is done, HR is just paperwork for me.

Interviewer:

OK, that makes sense.

All right, So the next question is:
Can you discuss any partnerships or collaborations your organization has formed with local
communities or other organizations to promote decent work and economic growth?
 47

Participant:

Form with local organizations to promote this OK, so we are partners, for example, with
a German company called Ideematec is one of the leading companies in the world where
the what we call a tracker solution of the steel structure and with that partnership, we are
an approved installer by Ideematec, right, and the both of us have the same mentality that
when the project fails, everyone in that project failed and when the project passed
everyone in that project will be passed, right, so therefore when they come into a project
they always try to promote us to get into that project and install their system so, That's
something, for example, that's more of a partnership collaborations, we do have
collaborations with a couple of companies and organizations, mainly on our Innovation
Center trying to develop new things and local communities, yeah, depending on the areas
we work, for example in Sudan now we have one guy from the local community in that
area where we work he's acting as our public relations officer and here he just gets around
Sudan and try to get us some projects in Sudan, for example, yeah, I mean that and as I
said, the NGOs and the universities, even on the universities, I want to touch bases that
we even tried to get into universities and to give credit hours in the university as part of
the program on an actual train like on a hands-on training to show the student, Ignore
whatever science you've got now let's go to real life, right, so let's work on real-life
activities we are trying and we've tried several to several universities to give credit hours
part of the student's program on this aspect is so, that's part of what we call some
academy, yeah, I mean and I would say for example, in one of our projects in Qatar, we
were hired by the main contractor to do, let's say, the management of the construction
works and one of the subcontractors there we managed to optimize his resources in a way
where we moved his project, his contract from a losing contract to a profitable contract
and that guy now is trying to get the project and he's always on the phone with us, like,
hey guys, where I have this project, hey Guys, we have that project so, as I stated three
times this couple of weeks, I would say these kinds of partnerships and collaborations led
to getting us to a point where we are not doing any business development at these times
we are, just receiving calls an uncountable number of phones.

Interviewer:

That's interesting, This brings me to a slightly different question, but what is the long-term vision
of your company in terms of promoting decent work and economic growth?

Participant:
 48

So yeah, our long-term and we've already started on that plan is expanding our
geographical coverage, having our office in Germany now, that's something we are trying
to cover Europe, also, we are in the middle of, I mean we are just waiting to have that
market more active to us, but we are also thinking about an office in Africa, OK, where
that will help us to promote our economic growth, at the moment, one of the partnerships
also we are working on with one guy, who was very, very good, relationship to like the
same, planning entities in the African governments and a few couples of countries like,
say, Equatorial Guinea, these kinds of countries, where we are trying to introduce that full
policy to them, so starting from literally scratch like nothing from someone who's never
heard about a solar module to having a fully wrapped up policy for the whole country,
that includes planning, strategic planning and regulatory works, so, that is giving us
exposure more and more and in addition to that, will also give us the opportunity to
expand ours the spectrum of clients, right, So, for me in a solar project, I can cover
everyone in that project I can provide my service to everyone one day I'm a
subcontractor, One day, let's say an advisor, one day An owner engineer, So, with this
now African thing we are and expanding it to cover the upper limit of the, let's say,
project stakeholder.

Interviewer:

That's interesting.
OK, so, the next question is a little different from the rest, well, can you just discuss any
challenges your organization has faced in promoting sustainable growth like economic growth
and social welfare and what measures have you taken to address these challenges?

Participant:

Can we say anything better than COVID? Yeah, that one time was like a disaster, luckily
and thankfully we were able to sustain our business we didn't let anyone out we kept
every single person in the team, that time we even use that time to do the trainings you're
still doing nothing OK, let's do training, now the challenge is, I mean as I'm pretty sure
I'm familiar with that, moving around having multiple, like people in a certain location
especially for us at that time we were in Qatar and like the challenge of keeping the mask
with the atmosphere of Qatar and getting the visas to Qatar and what we did was we tried
to take each and every action OK, especially on the visas we tried to escalate this to the
upper limits of the project stakeholders we reached a point where we got the CEO of the
project company get into the game and like you go under as a visa to come to finish your
project otherwise your project will stay whatever it is we faced issues with logistics
significant issues with logistics and again, Qatar at a certain point we had COVID and we
have these three channel closure at the same time, so like it was a double shot, Really hit
 49

us bad, we managed that by preparing the front works for that shipment, so, once that
shipment was there, everything was ready for it, and we expedited the performance in
order to cover that time something like what's happening now in Sudan, for example, we
were discussing with the client on a project in Sudan, and now we are, so, we are not sure
about what we are going to do with that project, so yeah, I would say COVID is the
biggest hit, I would say everyone in this world is taken, Right, at that time, Government
regulations like in Jordan, if I remember well, there was even like a process of or a law
On, let's say Sundays, Saturdays, Mondays, and Wednesdays, car plates with ending with
an odd number can move and the rest of the day's car numbers of plate numbers with an
even number, like, we have to go through all of our likes people were like governments
were sitting at home, and they were like playing around with people and trying to close it,
so, It was a big thing.

Interviewer:

That's interesting. That's so very enlightening to us.

You previously mentioned that you sometimes don't even look at people's CVs. So how does the
organization manage to recruit crew-like employees?

Participant:

OK here, as I said freelancing is an approach we use, OK, now how we recruit, two
things first we prepare to get fresh people as much as possible, of course, in some cases, I
don't have this privilege and why is that? Because I'd rather shape the process of a fresh
person to be easy, to get to be integrated within our overall, let's say mentality and
process rather than getting some more experienced and like to be very hard to shape them
and we rely on recommendations, we rely on recommendations, so, In some cases, we do
post things on LinkedIn or social media, but our main way as a recommendation, so we
start calling our connections and like hey, I'm looking for someone like this, Hey, I'm
looking for someone like that, do you know anyone, especially since our market is pretty
small, so, again, it's not something I would say, sales or standard construction or anything
where you have people all around the world standings that right, and as I said for me, this
CV means nothing.
I received a CV one time that says that this person was in the position in a project, where
I was in that position for the same project, so, like he didn't even think about looking,
Whom am I interviewing? Like he said, yes, I was the engineering manager of that
project, I said ah great trust me, you weren’t, I know that for sure I cannot be more sure
than this, so that's why for me, CV is just, what I look in the CV is the arrangement of the
CV, If the CV is well arranged because that shows this right? That shows someone he
really thought about it.
 50

Interviewer:

But don't you look at previous experiences?

Participant:

I look at previous companies, so I do prefer looking at previous companies and why is

that? Because I can always refer to people there, again, as I said, our market is too small,
so, I know at least one person in every organization, or at least I know one guy who
knows a guy so, our networking is pretty easy up than other business.

Interviewer:

I have kind of a follow-up question to the last, To the answer to the last question regarding the
COVID no, So you mentioned, you know the challenges of COVID, one of the challenges was
the vaccine and you know, the government rules regarding the vaccine and so I wanted to ask
mainly, did your company maybe like because there have been reports of other companies doing
this, but did your company maybe force employees to get vaccinated? Or did the employees
naturally just follow the government regulations regarding those?

Participant:

For us, we had no regulation on that, like, I Don't want even to get into the discussion of
some people who are not even believing that vaccines, So, Like for me here in the UAE,
Yeah, I was like, I wasn't forced, to take the vaccine by law, OK, but for example, I
wasn't allowed to get into the mall without a green pass, and in order to get that Green
Pass, I either had to have a 24-hour PCR, or a month at like at the last duration
one-month PCR with the vaccine under the condition to be, so, the for at least in our area
here, the government took that role from the companies, right? so, people's life was
finalized without a vaccine, I would say in some cases they are not allowed to get Into
some areas without a proper vaccine.
So the company mainly, No, Didn't have much of a role, then, and for us also because we
lived in this area, like we had vaccines from the first, like early stages, so, we didn't even
have to reach that point.

Interviewer:

OK, that's good to hear.

 51

Go to the next question. To what extent would you argue that your organization's sustainable
practices are affected by social and political pressure?

Participant:

We look, uh, the solar module Is around 40 to 45% of my price, OK, and as per
Bloomberg, the one known economic magazine the top 10, on the world solar
manufacturers at least seven of them, are Chinese, and the top five are Chinese the end of
the discussion.
Now here you start with all these political issues you have where silicon and like the
supply of silicon and all of these things that affect my work at a certain stage, many
projects were delayed or cancelled because as model prices spike like crazy, I can tell you
from March 2020 till June 2020 the prices went up by 33%, OK, so you know all of this
silicon issue is not the availability of the material or anything, it's purely political you
have the Ukrainian thing, and for us, the Ukrainian war affected us with steel
manufacturing, right? Because Ukraine is one of the biggest countries in steel, so, steel
went crazy, shipping the oil prices the container used to cost me like $2000 at a certain
point, costing me $20,000 I'm talking about huge numbers, right? That's on the political
level, right? countries are setting out the rules for renewable energies, right? For example,
in the Middle East, Jordan was a leading country in that thing many other countries are
still far behind, or they should like lately recently laws for solar, especially specifically
solar I'm talking right. So as long as the country is not regulating this thing, that is not a
market for me, so that's how my sustainability is affected by politics In other scenarios
where an investor from a country tries to invest in another country and then suddenly the
whole relationship between these two countries got damaged, and then the investors are
not doing that anymore.
Countries like Egypt, and Lebanon, now with the whole currency rate issue, So, they are
not attractive countries for investors even though there are regulations and Egypt has a
huge amount of solar renewables already built-in, right so that's all the political things
which I'm affected with, last thing, Visa is in some cases, the country might say, OK, I
don't want this nationality in my country Full stop. Right?
So that might be also an issue for me We've never faced it, but that is always something
on our list.
Social, I mean, as I said, we try to do as much as possible the local communities but in
some cases, you don't, or like, you cannot make them happy enough to keep you alone,
right? I can give an example, we had a contract with the social, local contractor in that
area of our project and his scope was so simple Just get sand to do the road, actually, with
that contract of two stories one that the material he brought was not compliant with the
requirements and we rejected that material But he still installed that material and he
 52

submitted his invoices and the project team rejected the invoices because the material is
not approved and our client didn't receive that through so, how I'm I paying him? He
went in with me the gun to approve their voices So simple.
With the same guy, 2 trucks driving, ah of course, there is a speed limit within this site,
but these trucks like that's not for them, for that's for everyone else For these guys,
nobody can talk so, if It's 40, they do 80 we kicked one or two guys, but in the end, they
are like so many, we cannot do that, two guys just like came face to face the road and the
road is pretty It's not wide enough to have two, both of them pass we found 120 bullet
shells in that area, closing the project is like just putting tents on the access of the project
and closing that project these things we've faced, Right. I can't even say more like, I can't
stay nights and nights talking about actions like that.

Interviewer:

Wow
That's interesting. That really kind of story…

Participant:

And I'm talking about Jordan, by the way, I'm not talking about a country like any…
Libya or Somalia, or you know, Jordan

Interviewer:

Yeah, a more well off another country.

Participant:

A stable country with laws, with everything.

Interviewer:

It wasn't expected.

Interviewer:

Kind of a follow-up question to this, So, you obviously mentioned the political and social
pressure UM, are there any other types of pressure that you face as an organization, maybe like
from other organizations and? Stuff like that,
 53

Participant:

We had a competitor taking on a project It simply didnt like us, and there were other
subcontractors to do the installations what we tried to do is to penetrate these
subcontractors, in order to take scoops on them and I received clear information that clear
instructions were given to the subcontractors Not to work with us. Literally, (I tell Nikkita
don’t work with Hammad), OK I’ll reject, like, OK, go sign with him, do whatever you
want with him them, but I’ll reject is I have the power to do that and that's not a fair way
of using power, but that thing happened, right?
I wouldn't call it competition because competition is a totally different way of doing
things So yeah, we'll see some, we had such kind of actions.

Interviewer:

That's interesting. UM, this brings me to the next question on to what extent would you argue
that your organization…mmm this is maybe a little confusing question, but I'll explain it.
To what extent would you argue that your organization is following a sustainable business model
in comparison to a business model that has elements of sustainability?
So, with this, I mainly mean like would you argue that your company the way that your company
is working the business model that you are applying is sustainable at its core or is it just in a
normal business model that has elements of sustainability?

Participant:

Yes, I think we are sustainable. that sustainability comes from the let's say the way we
operate in the company, especially in the hiring and the map-like, It's strategy. The
second thing is, the way we provide services, right we are this is how I like to present it
we are a company with a restaurant menu, right? So, when you go to a restaurant, you
have soups, salads and main course, right? You can either order everything or you can
order just a salad and say I don't want tomato on that salad. The same comes to me, you
want a design and you just want the electrical design? Want the civil design? I will do it.
Do you want everything? Will do it so, That gives us from our own perspective, how we
see it that gives our clients the sense that we are not here just to collect money from them,
right? We are here to really cover their exact needs nothing more, nothing less Right, so,
I'm not trying to charge you 2-3 engineers and they will be doing nothing, No, I will
charge you maybe one, maybe 10, maybe 20 engineers each one of them is really needed
to cover your requirement, so, that's for us these two points, the hiring and the business
model gives us huge sustainability, OK. And as I said that we cover all spectrums of not
being entitled to one kind of customer, right? So, I mean, let's say, I'm not like a perfume
shop, only the guy who wants perfume will come to you, Right, No, I can't, For me, I can
 54

be with the client with the project owner, the supplier, the contractor, with the
subcontractor, the owner, the engineer with anyone, and a few projects we were with
three people on the same project with three contracts for the same project, I had someone
with the suppliers, someone with the construction and someone with the engineering.

Interviewer:

That's interesting. So, would you say that you're then, your business model is also sustainable?
Like obviously you mentioned before your company because it's working with solar, It's
obviously very environmentally sustainable, but would you also say that your business model
also promotes more, Sustainability when it comes to the workforce environment, you know
economic conditions and such?

Participant:

Yeah, of course. That, and takes us back to the question about,… I think there was a
question about how to make sure that the work environment is good work environment
for your team? So, I mean, as you know, as long as the organization is economically
stable, Right, everything in the environment will be stable, everyone will be happy, and
on the environment the point of view as, I said we always try to reduce the use of
machinery or optimize the use of machinery not even reducing I don’t want to use the
term reduce, optimize the resources we are now working on a project in our Innovation
Center to, digitalize the full documentation of a solar project on a central digital platform
where you are not requested to print anything.

Interviewer:

This kind of brings me to another question. So, for example, you said that you're digitalizing this
entire system, Do you think that would negatively affect the workers? Because obviously before
digitalization you would have somebody working there.

Participant:

I still, need everyone in the organization, so our document goes from one side to the other
somebody prepares the document and sends it to what we call a document controller, that
document controller submits the document and then on the other side there is a document
controller which receives the document and distributes It to The team so, maybe the only
guy I'm making Him loses his business is the printer guy, that's it.
 55

Interviewer:

OK. That makes sense.

Participant:

Yeah, that's the only guy, but for me on my organization chart, I still need everyone. I'm
just stopping the printing process.

Interviewer:

That brings me to my next question. Do you think that the organization's sustainability practice
gives it a competitive advantage?

Participant:

Of course, yes, we have a competitive, look. Let's say a direct result of the friendship we
have Is, the understanding in many cases we don't need to communicate with each other
because we know, I know the project manager is expected or will expect from me
123456, right? So, this gives us communication or the undirected communication I
would say, right? This helps us to perform very well in our business and in our projects
and that makes the project we are in the success story, and when it's a success story, it is a
sustainable and competitive advantage, we've been into positions, I was in a meeting I
think in January, we're just meeting a random client and we told him about one of our
projects and they said like, OK, and Marco says hi, Like, who's Marco that? He
explained, who's Marco? Marco was the project director of one of our projects where we
were subcontractors there, and he was asking him, like, hey, did these guys work with
you on that project? and I said like, yeah, man, get them into your project for sure, Right,
so, that's a competitive advantage, It's not only about money, it's also about your
reputation, right? So, our reputation Is a big element here, In our competitiveness and
into, our sustainability.

Interviewer:

That's nice to hear.

The last question now is:
How does the work environment within your organization affect employee turnover?

Participant:
 56

Look, the company is. Since 2017, so we've just celebrated our fifth anniversary, a couple
of months ago, starting from that time, Five people left us, one wanted to go back to his
home country, Bulgaria, and one had to go to the US to continue his studies, and one
wanted to change career life totally so, The other two just went to the other stakeholders
in the company, so we have a relatively low turnover.
We have people, like from the beginning, all the way to today so, obviously, people are
happy with us because they are like, let's be realistic as long as the employee is happy in
the workplace, he wakes up in the morning happy to go to that place to meet his friends
and he's financially stable, there's nothing will make Him move, Right, So, this is
something helps us to reduce the turnover of our employees so, we don't have so much.
Now, Freelancers are a totally different story, right? So, they are just freelancers if they
are available, they come in, if they are not available, they are just not right so, That's it.

I just want to touch base on one question actually, about creating jobs.
Europe now what we are doing actually is that we are discussing this because we know
Europe is suffering from manpower supply like there is a huge demand of manpower in
Europe, what we are trying to do that, now and that says something, is and I am
personally working on with our partner in Europe is getting the new arrivals on board, so,
not for anything, It's just from an operation perspective, we are first looking for
Arab-speaking people where they can be like interpreters between us and the other party,
right? So, if we want to work in Germany, they can speak German with them and they
can speak Arabic with us, so they can speak with the German people, and they can speak
with us at the same time, that's just an advantage for them, and we are trying to build
some kind of a team there, again a freelancing team where it's a package, we have a
project I speak to Hamad and say OK, I have a project come with your team, So Hamad
has like 5-6 people with him, they just move altogether, into the team, and yeah, that's
something we are trying now to help people first on a financial level and 2nd to what I
would say be more, uh, active in with the local people and the local communities that are
that coming into it so. that is something really helpful.
We are actually even on that, we are working with an NGO in Germany, to coordinate
something like this through one of my friends, we are active on this point really.

Interviewer:

I have one final question before we wrap this up. I guess the question is, how exactly does your
company encourage employees to innovate more and think out of the box? Like is it by you
know incentives or is it by commissions and stuff or is it by you know, the general work
environment where you've designed an environment where you promote this kind of thinking or
yeah.
 57

Participant:

It's by making their life easier, right, So now when I'm telling my design engineer to work
and the tool which gives me a full calculation for the cable sizing, right, taking all of the
aspects, right I'm just making his life easier, so, that's the main thing right, he's happy
with that, he's spending now, I don't know 1-2 weeks to develop that thing, but he knows
that tomorrow it's a 30-minute job instead of like a one-day job for him, right, so, that
reduces for sure we didn't go yet into a commercial, let's say, operation of such
developments right, even our pullout test, the test I explained earlier, nothing is very like
It was always an add-on to our client like we never sold that thing as a separate contract It
was something that we have a scope and OK, Let's do this for you, Sir, That was the
aspect, So again, it's just instead of them, because even if you are happy in an
environment but you don't have a goal to finish by the end of the day you go there like
you don't want to go there, like why I'm going there, I'd rather stay on my couch and
watch a movie, right? So, with this, we encourage them to come and look If you have a
goal let's build something nice here,

Interviewer:

OK, that's good.

So, you've designed a virtual environment that promotes innovation then?

Participant:

Yeah, and one also one example about the actions we take to improve the working
conditions we stand up for our clients, for our employees, sorry, like we had to go into
points with our clients that they wanted to get one of our team out and OK, get him out,
we are out, It's either him and us or none of us, so.
OK. As long as the employee is on the right, so, and in that specific example, we know
people were trying to slow him down because they wanted to keep their job as long as
possible, Right, and for us, we had a target to finish the project, so, we stood up for him
and like, no, it's either of us and him or none of us, So here the employee knows that his
management is backing him up like he's not thrown in the desert alone with zero backup
you know, he's fully backed up we also provide them with proper accommodation, proper
transportation when they are deployed outside the country we do, me and our CEO we go
to the project country before anyone else and we do our risk assessment by seeing things
with our eyes going to a hospital, making sure that here there's a good hospital security
concerns accommodation something which I don't want to live in, I want to let someone
live in.
That's fine, yeah.
 58

Interviewer:

It's actually refreshing to hear that there are good working environments like that then.
I think we're done with our questions.
Then we're really thankful, that you gave us this time too, you know.

Participant:

I hope, I answered again. Because our business is a sustainable business, right, there are
not much, of actions, we usually take to do that like, our core business is sustainability,
so,

Interviewer:

Yeah, I feel like we've gotten enough information to, you know, make a considerable. Analysis or
whatever. Yeah, we're very thankful for your time, and I'm very thankful.
Thank you.

Participant:

My pleasure.

Interviewer:

We really appreciate that you took you time to do this.

Participant:

No worries at all. No worries at all.

OK.
Anytime. OK.

Interviewer:

We're done.
Yeah, uh, yeah. And you probably have a lot of stuff to do as well. So yeah, we will. OK.

Participant:
 59

Bye bye.

Interviewer:

Bye bye.

Appendix III
Beta company, Participant Beta

Interviewer:

So first of all I would thank you for being part of our research study for Mälardalen University.

I’ll start with the first question. So could you please tell me about your position in this
organisation?

Participant:

OK, of course, I would thank you also for giving me this opportunity to introduce myself,
our company. And hopefully, I can really provide you with good information or maybe
the things you expect. My name is Participant Beta I'm a biomedical engineer I have
worked at Beta since 2004 I can say during these probably 20 years I successfully
managed the company to provide good and high technology systems and control and
monitoring solutions to the market, especially the healthcare sector.

Interviewer:

OK, and regarding your position.

Participant:

My position is actually I'm a partner. And at the same time, I'm managing the operations,
so I'm the operation manager, Also, we do like a few developments, So, we develop
systems, So, I'm also the manager for that department, developing systems, yeah.

Interviewer:

Great.
So, the second question is how you define sustainability from your perspective.?
 60

Participant:

Alright, Sustainability is about living within the means of natural systems so, and
ensuring that our lifestyle or our production, whatever we do, does not really harm the
people around us, surrounding us, harming the environment, so it's like integration or like
a piece which is, sorry, a unit which is a piece between different things between us,
between environment and the economy That's I can call it, yeah.
Interviewer:

Great,
So, could you describe your organization and what you guys do?

Participant:

Alright. The company is a well-known supplier in UAE and the Middle East we do
business in UAE, we do business in the Middle East and Gulf area, Let's say, we supply
monitoring and control solutions, especially in healthcare, and the food processing and
petroleum industries, So, we've got a lot of Installations we have a professional team who
will provide the installation, and the training to the client and to do the service after sales.
That's our major.

Interviewer:

OK, the next question. What is your main CSR strategy? Corporate social responsibility?

Participant:

As any company, we are a part of society, so we have a responsibility to support the

community we live in, I can say that our main corporate social responsibility strategy is
to create sustainable technology solutions so that everyone can benefit from this
environment, people and economy, so, we believe that this technology like the medical
equipment and the technology, we are responsible to have a proper and positive impact
on the world throughout us, we believe that we should give back to the community what
they supported, so that's like giving back to the community, so we have partnered with a
lot that, let's say, not lot like many non-profit organization to support their initiations and
what they are looking for. We also call and encourage our employees to do volunteers
here or in their community, So, that's really a part of our philosophy and policy to really
put the responsibility on everyone to promote sustainability So that's how we think about
 61

it, So, we should really, create technology solutions that benefit everyone, the
environment, society, and the economy.

Interviewer:

Awesome,
So now with our core theme, our question is: are SDGs an actively sought-after goal for your
organization?

Participant:

Yeah, of course, we are part again of this world, of this planet, So, we are affected, we
affect and we are affected. So we should be taking action to achieve at least the minimum
of these goals, At least we should do something.

Interviewer:

Yeah, like, could you be more specific about SDG 8, like economic growth and employee
equalities, And stuff like that from SDG 8?

Participant:

OK. Yes, I mean, we recognize the importance of promoting economic growth, OK and
growing the economy also need to create jobs and you need to create opportunities for the
staff for, I mean new opportunities, So, people will join you and but we sometimes not
always we have like permanent stuff sometimes, use freelancer, so it depends on how,
what the project we have if it's really like a long-run project we could bring someone,
otherwise, if it's a small one small term, so we can use our higher freelancer because as I
said, we are not, we are a small company not big company, so our engineers, we have to,
they have to install and doing like their installation in the market, but as a technology
company, we offer solutions that enable the business to increase efficiency our solutions
is really, affecting and in it's increasing the efficiency and the productivity and
profitability, but we help also by providing these solutions, If we really don't have a lot of
stuff, but, when we provide the solutions and the client OK, the client can create a few
like opportunities, so, we maybe we are not really directly doing this, but in another way
we are creating like new opportunities in the client Institute or the client company, so,
that's one of we are expecting at the end to increase the number of opportunities or
number of vacancies, so that's how we do it If it's not directly, we are doing it by
somehow on the other side, So I believe, I mean what we're doing is really helping the
 62

society helping the economy to make sustainable economic growth and to provide like a
stable business or let's say to everyone and In the market.

Interviewer:

Yeah, like as a company, how do you define economic growth or let's say what does economic
growth means to you as a company?

Participant:

Economic growth as a technical company, as it depends mainly on what, because we are

a technical company It depends on the market, If the market needs or the market does not
need, so it's a challenge between up and down, So, we are not always up, we are not
always down, so, it depends how the Demand comes from the market, OK, but it's also
achievable through the growth of our labor inputs In addition, keeping our technology
Stay in the competition, so we try to compete with other people, we provide a good
technology which is competing with others, so, if we are competitive then we can get
business at times you don't really have a big cake, OK, but still it's a small cake, but if
you really compete with someone and you've got a better technology than him, you can
get the business, So, that's how we try always to provide the best, So, providing the best
Then you can really get the benefit, like also, many things can be found related to each
other, like a number of working hours with developing the technologies and of course I
mean we have always to take into our consideration how to make a balance between
everything to make sure that we have a sustainable system continuing to the end without
losing anything, So, it's like a balance between the demand and our expenses.

Interviewer:

Fair enough. So that brings me to the next question, which is how does this organization balance
the need for economic growth with the need to promote resource management?

Participant:

Actually, you know, resources are many come from different places like you need
financing, stuff, you need a place to work, you need equipment, you need technologies,
and so many things, and in our operation, we always try to use, in our work i mean, as a
company or as a supplier, we try always to use good equipment, OK, I mean, with
energy-saving equipment, that's important because when you provide such equipment,
you are saving the planet that's, you working in a sustainable way so in our
recommendation for example in one of the works we did in the last project we did, we
 63

provided equipment which is really sustainable medical equipment and we explained to

the client that this is really a product which they can depend on, that's, So, yeah, It's a
good product which you can depend on, and it's really running for now without any
problem, also making us,I mean, satisfy the client, If you tell him, I can give you a
warranty of three years and we are really able to provide the three years without any
problem, So, that's the product is really a good product, OK, So, we try also like when we
have work, we don't really overshoot what I mean by overshooting we don't really do, I
mean, especially if it's like working with the government we don't really try to put too
many staff or too many engineers if that job does not really, really need too many, So, we
try to use it exactly, what does the job require So we don't really like it, it's a kind of It's
cheating if you don't You don't really do It is that way Then you are cheating So you are
not really following a proper way of working So that's really important for us to provide a
good quality product for the long run and to provide that exact or suitable team for the
project.

Interviewer:

And I think this gives you a good reputation as well.

Participant:

Yes, yes, that's really that's one of the important reasons for our growth for 20 years now
we are talking about 20 years almost, so the company is still continuing for 20 years,
which means the company is stable and has a good reputation in the market.

Interviewer:

Yeah, that is good

So that brings me to the next question. How does your organization create jobs and promote fair
wages or fair salaries, let's say?

Participant:

Right, OK, good question, our company again, it's not really that big scale company our
yeah, the opportunities for us depend on like projects or service contracts because
sometimes we do new projects, sometimes we have a contract which is continuing for
years, we have I mean sometimes we really get, like freelancers as I mentioned before,
but, in the end, our target is to keep our staff really satisfied that's important, especially
the main staff, because those main staff, you know, after years they become experienced
engineers or technicians or sales you depend on them, so, if you lose them then you lose
 64

all this experience all this accumulated experience if you lose them, you could again start
again from zero, but that's important, So, based on this, we have a program to provide
commission to provide tickets to provide like this, advantages, and incentives, medical
insurance, we pay for the vacancy or if they have any vacancy, vacation i mean, sorry, we
pay them, So, we try to keep them satisfied, sometimes they ask loans they don't want to
go to bank, frankly, they may come to the company saying, they want aloan to If you can
give me a loan and deduct it from my salary, so we save interest on them, So, that's the
kind of support from our side, yeah, especially if we have really a good guy who has been
showing his responsibility and his support to the company for years, So, that's really
important for us to keep that person happy and satisfied with the company.

Interviewer:

Yeah, Is this Commission or incentives, It's like written with clear points in the contract?

Participant:

Yes, yes.
Yeah, of course, Because if you don't write, you could say no, I will not give you, but we
write it to make sure that the stuff his rights is reserved when you write it down on a
paper or in a contract, it's all reserved, So no one can really, it is a contract, If you break
this contract you go to court, but of course, you don't get a commission when you have
really lost when you lose in the project I mean, you give the commission when you have
real profit that's how we do it there will always be any condition applied on this.

Interviewer:

Perfect.
So now with the next question, how does your organization help people develop the skills they
need to succeed in the workforce?

Participant:

Alright, We always, I mean training, the best thing you do in your company to put like for
quality management, if you have quality management in your company, So, you should
have always patterns and rules and policies everything should be done in the company,
and the policy, so, one of our policies to provide the training, I mean to the staff, we
provide also client support after I mean after we sell we have, we call it ‘’service after
the sale’’, OK, So that that's its continuous support for the client, and I mean most
important is the training, so, when you, I mean that training is the most or the best way to
 65

develop skills, because, when you train your staff or you train your client you're
developing his skills because he knows how to do it Right? So, and here for my team
always I mean, we always give them, or, we advise them actually if there's any exhibition
belong to the same need we go, and myself I go but also I always make sure my stuff all
of them take that day off and go for exhibitions, especially in Dubai, Dubai have a lot of
exhibitions taking place, so they take off, actually, it's not off, it's paid by the company,
and we ask them to go and attend that exhibition, to see what's technology available, so
on, to see what's happening in the world, so, that's how you really, make your team have a
good education and good information we send them training sometimes outside to the
principals where we buy our products when we bring equipment for let's say from UK,
we send engineering directly to the UK, stay there more expenses get the training gets
certified, because when you go to the client and you do the installation he may ask you
simply does that guy knows how to do it? we have, we show him the certificate that the
guy trained to do the installation and to support you.

Interviewer:

Awesome,
So, with the next question, what are the tactics employed by your organization to make sure
people are not exploited or mistreated in the workplace?
Especially, you're in the UAE and you have multi-nationals living there?

Participant:

Exactly, that’s a good one, So, I mean could apply in our place, because you know, in
UAE have more than 200 nationalities, I mean coming from all over the world, So, we've
got a really strict policy on this, like, because when you go there, you could stay with
different persons and every person has a different way of dealing or different mentality,
So, we always say, your behaviour should be really polite, so, you should really be polite
when you talk to your staff, or to the staff there, and in the same time, I mean, we tell
them we provide them with the training and awareness, what's the because we know, I
mean, how the things. And at the same time, we may see sometimes that some the
technician being, attacked or not attacked, let's say being under violence from someone,
So, we always tell them in this country, you've got rules If you have any kind of things,
please come and report it to us and we will take action because there's the police, there's a
law, I mean, there's law in the country, so, I could say that the company, yeah, That in the
company we have too many different nationalities, different cultures, not only
nationalities, even from the same nationality we got different religions we got Indian
Who is Hindu, Muslims and Christians, so, all these people living under the same
company under the same name, so, we try always to work, or to deal with each other as a
 66

friend, OK, we have to respect each other, so yeah, and especially when we go outside,
we forget that we are managers and technicians, so, we deal very freely to each other, we
have a dinner, we have food, we make like a family atmosphere, so, that's important
really to keep the company healthy, actually, that's what you call it.

Interviewer:

Fair enough.
So, how does your organization help support small businesses and entrepreneurs?

Participant:

Right. helping is not limited to really a small company or a big company, we are a small
company, but we can help in such a way like we did it we've got like 20 years of
experience and those experience came not naturally by hard work, by mistakes we did a
lot of mistakes, so these mistakes, we know that this, we did this mistake, so,
accumulating of these mistakes is our experience that equal experience, so we can really
always, if someone really contacting us or reaching us, we tell them, yeah, this is how we
did this, that way when we did this it was a mistake then we got this is the correct way of
doing it, So, yeah, I mean what we faced as challenges we can really offer it to someone
who's really starting from zero, so, that's really good, Yeah, it's still, it's an experience It's
a small company or big company, you've got experience and that experience will help
everyone to start, yeah.

Interviewer:

So that brings me to the next question. What is your organization doing to reduce poverty and
inequality in the areas where it operates? I think you operate only in the UAE now.

Participant:

We operate in UAE, but still as I said, we do business in the Middle East, especially in
the Gulf area actually, we've got some other small business like in Jordan, UAE is
considered really one of the richest countries the income or the if you go for average
income for person is really high comparing to other countries, but still our company work
with all way all possibilities we did some support in Syria during the war outside UAE, I
can say, that we've got someone through our through one of our friends that saying they
have a Medical Center and that Medical Center needs really some equipments which is
under our scope of work, so, we supported them, we give them what we could and at the
same time, we have now a plan to establish an institute where we can teach the young
 67

students, or the people where we have they have really good talent for this kind of
technology to learn in early ages or early years on the technology, So that really could
really bring a good engeneers in the future when you really start early to turn the attention
for those talents, probably they will really be very good in the future, so, that's one of our
to share our technology with the society, that's really the meaning to share what we have,
what we got, how we develop, so, all these things will really support the community,
yeah.

Interviewer:

Yeah, that's great.

Can you give an example of a project or initiative your organization has undertaken to improve
working conditions for employees?

Participant:

Aright The company is based in Abu Dhabi, OK. So Abu Dhabi, as I said, now we're
doing business not only in Abu Dhabi we're doing UAE and we're doing outside UAE,
so, let's say if we talk about UAE, if you go from Abu Dhabi to Dubai, it's like 150
kilometres so, you can send the person by bus, you could transportation is not really.. we
need, we say all in our contract we give you transportation, but how we give the
transportation, we can say and by bus if we want, but no, we do it in a different way
we've got our own cars, which is really comfortable air-conditioned car, good quality,
high safety with high points of safety and so we have a we've got a driver who really take
the stuff to the place where they have to do the job, I mean as a working, or as a rules in
the deal, or, in the contract once they finish the work, they should come, back to Abu
Dhabi, OK, we don't do this, sometimes when we see that the engineer again need to
come on the next day, we say no, take a room in hotel, so, we make sure that he really get
enough time for rest or enough hours, that's important, so, when you wake up, you wake
up the next day, really with full power, at the same time we offer him food and I mean,
we cover all the expenses for the, for the staff If they go outside Abu Dhabi, because they
are not, because if they are in Abu Dhabi, they have like lunch breaks, so they can take
the lunch in, and they can bring the food, so they don't need to pay outside, so in this case
the company will cover everything for him, food, drinks, everything and even sleeping.

Interviewer:

accommodation you mean.

Participant:
 68

Yeah, I'm sorry for that. Transportation and accommodation, both are covered by the
company.

Interviewer:

This brings me to the next question. How does your organization work to ensure that all workers,
regardless of gender or ethnicity, have equal opportunities for advancement?

Participant:

This process actually, start from the time you bring the person or bring the stuff, I mean,
when you hire someone you need to make sure that he's really suitable for your work.
Your job is to bring someone who can do the work, but we don't really look, and this is
very famous in Abu Dhabi because when you make an interview or when you put or
advertise or put an advertisement for stuff, you may get one guy from Philippine, one guy
from Pakistan by the guy from India from different people, so in my company or in our
company you can see we've got from Pakistan, we've got from Philippine, we've got from
India, we've got Arabic, we've got really multinational, that's a good example on UAE
based companies you could say other campaigns only complete Indian or completely you
could see that, you could see it some people like this, In our company, no, what we look
for is the capability, the behavior, the experience that's what we want, OK, when we have
all these things, we don't care you're coming from India or he's coming from Pakistan or
he's Muslim or he’s another, that's not our job, what we concentrate on is the work, we
don't, for us all people is really the same, that's really how we do it, and that's what we
have in the company, I mean, so, yeah, that's our important thing, so we need that the
stuff to feel safe in the environment here and, the company is considered the second
environment other than the house or the home, so we try always to make that
environment very similar, very close to his home like family, OK, so that what really
make, If he feels safe, then the technician or the supervisor or whatever the position he
will really produce or his his productivity will become on the maximum, so, anyhow, we
try always, because some people they come from lets say from India, they never seen
Arabic, we always give them training, we give them, that to accept other people you
should accept, that this guy you are maybe Hindu and he's Christians or you should, I
mean, we tried to inform them that this is how you should do it we should live together,
all of us, as family It doesn't matter where we come from, so, everybody, every everyone
really feel happy in our campaign we have a very good example as I said before, we've
got staff with us since eight years So, yeah, so these people really feeling the company as
their family friendly, yeah.
 69

Interviewer:

So, you don't make, let’s say, a requirements. For example, if you want, an IT developer or
whatever, you don't have this requirement, I mean, for example, we need a female, let’s say from
this nationality.

Participant:

No, that's not really in our We’ve got sales ladies doing sales, and we've got technicians, I
mean, also ladies doing installations, because you, in the end, that she can do the job for
us. Yeah, that's what we want, we don't really look for other things.

Interviewer:

That's great. Can you discuss any partnerships or collaborations your organization has formed
with local communities or other organizations to promote decent work and economic growth?

Participant:

Unfortunately, we don't really have direct partnership with any organization, any of that
like direct, but maybe we can really, maybe I mean, we have some collaboration,but not
real one, I mean like small support, but we always tell that, I mean our staff or our let's
say our staff to follow the our policies and to follow the rules and the regulation and the
guidelines in the government here that's really been an Abu Dhabi or in UAE, we try to
be competitive when it comes to our compensation offering of to our employees I mean
doing something like this will help the company also to do the same because when you
come when you really offer something good the other companies will compete in the
same way, so that will create a good kind of competition and, so, they will do the same,
OK, so, I think that's how we do it, because if we really deal, with the companies or deal
with the stuff in a good way, we support them, we offer them good things the other
companies will follow the same thing, so, we'll do the same and try to compete from that
way I can say, doing all these things will help really the company to do the same
reputation as for example, as our reputation, brand and awareness is and the business
really is affected by this, so, many companies doing the same, as I said before, we are
apart from this community, so, we need to make sure that, and we do everything good in
the market that's very important If you don't really do something good in the market or
you make your name really as I said, good you will lose by the time you will be out of the
market you will not be able to yeah, any do your activity that's important and that's why
we are now 20 years in the market.
 70

Interviewer:

Yeah, And now with the next question, it's kind of different from what I asked before. What is
the long-term vision of your organization in terms of promoting decent work and economic
growth?

Participant:

Our long-term goal, is really to promote economic growth that benefits everyone we want
to create jobs and we want to promote fair working conditions for everyone that's how we
want to achieve this we also want to use the resources, I mean like you know, things
which Is available in the, Like, the natural resources or the parts or whatever we need to
use it really wisely, so, we need to like promote always a sustainable practice, we want to
develop the technology and to help everyone, I mean, we want to help us that technology
to make money, but at the same time we want to protect, as I said, our teams, our
environment our, I mean surrounding people or surrounding places, yeah.

Interviewer:
That's great.
Now the next question.
Can you discuss any challenges your organization has faced in promoting sustainable economic
growth and social welfare, and what measures have you taken to address these?

Participant:

Right. I think the biggest challenge that's a good common challenge for everyone,
actually that's a really good example beginning of this decade, sorry, during the corona,
the new crisis, that's really a big challenge for every company for big companies, for
small companies, for everyone. It was really a big challenge, I can say, what happened to
me, we, I came to Canada at the beginning of 2022. so after that everything stopped and I
could not come back to Abu Dhabi and I had to work remotely from here and my stuff
actually, you know, we could see people start getting fired or leaving the companies
people leaving their the country especially UAE and they're going back home they lost
their income, they lost it, that's a disaster actually, in that time that's one of the biggest,
so, there was a challenge on the company what to do, how can we continue? I can say and
you can check it yourself, Beta company, the company, sorry, didn’t lose any single staff,
we did not even reduce the salary, we continue supporting everyone we know that's really
a big challenge, and we had to really use our profit from our profit to support the staff and
to keep them really, because there is no work and you need to pay money for the people
to continue, You could say easly, Thank you, bye, leav and finish, , but that's not what our
 71

philosophy, also, we continue supporting our clients at the same time it was very difficult
because you know, we work in the medical and the healthcare segment and imagine how
we are doing, we are going there, our life, our staff life was exposed to dangers because
they are dealing with equipment, they are dealing with patients we provided a lot of
equipment free of charge to them to help the hospitals we tried to we are part from that
thing in UAE, in the medical sector especially who really fight that disease and we could
win and continue back to the normal life, so, that was one of the biggest challenges, on
us, as I said, we fight that easily and we keep the stuff without losing anyone, No one left
the company, No one reduced his salary, we passed that exam in really very successful
way.

Interviewer:

Yeah, that's great.

That's great to hear.
I think you've mentioned something wrong, that the pandemic started in 2022. I think you mean
2020.

Participant:

Oh, 2022 that's 2020. Yes,. Yeah, Sorry, I was in 2020 at the beginning of 2020 In
January I came, you know, to spend my Christmas here In Canada and after that, after
Istvaan and in February, things goes quickly and the pandemic started going crazy all
over the world and everything stopped, so, I could not come back.

Interviewer:

So that brings me to the next question.

How does the organization manage the recruitment of employees? I mean, the recruitment
process here.

Participant:

Alright. OK. recruitment always, you know, starts with your needs, If you have like needs
then you need, so, we create like a list of what we want, so, like, I mean we want for
example this technician this position, so, our important always is the experience that's
what we look for we don't really look for something else, OK, but sometimes before we
go in an advertisement. You know, we have friends and, yeah, and then in the market
sometimes, so some of our friends or let's say clients could be clients sometimes advising
us, Oh you want an engineer? I know, someone who's really good. So, we can use those
 72

channels, because we trust them and if a guy we know him very well, then maybe advises
us to bring someone that will be really easier, so, that's how we do it, otherwise, if we
found someone, of course, we meet him, we make sure that he can do the job what we
want. We make, so, If he passed, maybe we sometimes like choosing three or four people,
so we all of them, OK, but, at the end for us, we put some questions or some things which
will really make, and some of the answers sometimes even all of them good, but we can
find this guy is much better than this guy because of 1,2,3, so that's how it does, its start
with the CV it goes to the interview, then discuss the contract.

Interviewer:

Yeah, so. Now the next question. To what extent would you argue that your organization's
sustainable practices are affected by social and political pressure?

Participant:

Alright. Yeah, that's also a good question, because again, UAE really and one of the good
examples for this and UAE, as I mentioned earlier and we've got people coming from
different places, different cultures, different religions, different opinions, a lot, you can
see the and it's difficult to make when you've got such a variety, so, it's difficult to make
everyone happy around you that's become really a challenge, but we should understand
these differences we should be I mean, that's the situation also we should, yeah, I mean
understand that, and when you live in a It's different than you when you live in Europe or
USA or in every country has different a way of living, different rules, different things, so,
we should understand this we should understand this, sometimes when you cannot
compare the salary, for example in Germany to UAE or let's say in UAE and to India It's
not, it's not comparable It's not possible to compare this also, like, again some bad things,
It's not bad we can say different, In USA or Europe or Canada or anywhere, for example,
they give for maternity they give like nine months or maybe more, sometimes even for
further they give, while you don't get the same that's the rule, so, you get only 60 days,
so, we have to, I mean, you have to understand this, OK, so, when we get someone, we
explain this, OK, this is the rule this is the situation, you should accept it this is because
we are following the rules, again, start from the beginning we follow the guidelines and
the rules of the government, so, that's the situation in Abu Dhabi or UAE, so we have to
follow.

Interviewer:
 73

So like, could you have any exceptions, like for example, any exceptions for some employees?
Or do you just follow the rules? So, you say, this is the rules and this is what you have to follow,
or it's never happened?

Participant:

It happened to us. like, especially when we have like sometimes you know, like, a person
who really like his father passed away, so, in the rule maybe you can give him only 10
days, but sometimes, or 15 days he has to go back to his home and he's not able to come
back because of his mother, he wants to spend some more time, it depends that's really
something we face, so, we understand this and we give him more time we try to really
split the work to somebody else who can really work or get a freelancer during that time
until he come back, we had another problem, once, one of our staff stuck in Pakistan,
actually, two months or three months because of his passport, he could not come back
there was some problem, so, he's a good guy we know him and he realized that the
company supported him, we did not really leave him there, we said OK, fine, solve your
problem and come back he was supposed to disappear one month, but he disappeared for
three months, So I could, as the rule says, I could say that's if you didn't come back I can
cancel his contract immediately but again, in the company, we are family, we understand
it's not rule always 100% need to apply, No, you need to understand, What's happening
around you.

Interviewer:

Yeah, fair enough.

So, to what extent would you argue that your organization is following a sustainable business
model in comparison to a business model that has elements of sustainability?

Participant:

Alright. Yeah, good one. OK, we are again small company, so I don't want really to go
really too much in, because that's difficult to compare the sustainability between the
companies, sometimes the small company will follow that procedure, as I said, like
because as a company we always try to make money, that's how we work because we
need money, but we always try to balance as much as possible from that income which
we get from the work to distribute it for the profit for the company, for the team to make
everyone really as much as possible, really satisfied at the same time, we try to, again
educating the team, make them happy, all this costing because, when you educate the
person, that the stuff In your company, you need to send them for training you need to
provide him education that will cost you money, so, it's like again, a balance between
 74

everything and to make them happy, as I said, a lot of things behind this to make a
celebration, to go outside, to make lunch, a lot of things will cost, but in the end you're
trying to make your stuff happy, so, if we come to big company, we could see it in the
media It's not, I mean, a lot of companies really clear that, yeah, we are a really
sustainable company and we're doing everything in a proper way we have, but when you
come to reality It's not like this. I don't want to mention names you can see their factories
in very poor countries where they have really very bad conditions of living and
workplace they don't get insurance, they don't get enough money if you meet any of their
employees, he can say I'm getting Like $3 per month, which is that company making a lot
of money, It's a well-known company It's a big, big establishment, so, it's not a small
establishment, it's a big one having like branches everywhere around the world, where is
the sustainability now? they're doing nothing, they have a lot of, you know, Setting on the
papers.
But in reality, it's not there, OK. Yeah, I mean, I know a lot of companies like this at the
end It's not really something true that every big company is a sustainable company, No, in
reality, is different, I mean, if you need to be sustainable, you need to, as I said before,
you need as I said before, to provide sustainable technology or systems you need to
provide long run business, like keeping the employees for a long time with you need to
save your planet you need to support your community, so, it's like a combination of these
things I do not really agree that a big company is really always sustainable, that's not
really true in my opinion.

Interviewer:

Yeah, that brings me to the next question. How do you think that your organization's sustainable
practices give it a competitive advantage? I think you kind of touched on this point in the
previous question. I think what I've understood is you think that sustainability for companies is
more like a trend rather than real practice.

Participant:

Yeah, exactly. It's as I said they are not really, it's not they're not really competitive, they
are really, only they are following just trends, it's not really practical, to be competitive,
you need to reduce, not to reduce, to consider all the things, like, as I said, the cost,
reputation, your team, your technical, I mean your technical team, education, you need to,
a lot of things you need to consider to be competitive If you don't do this, then you are
not really agree and you cannot be considered as a competitive it's at the end, as I said,
and as you said, it's a trend, It's not real.

Interviewer:
 75

Yeah, but you could argue that when you say like, oh, I give to my employee, like fair wages, or
I treat them like this like that. It's a kind of competitive advantage for you.

Participant:

Of course, that's what we it's as I said. It's like when we talk about the company name and
you talk about the stuff of the company, when you say that person is already nine years
with you he could not stay nine years if you don't really , he's not stupid, he's now, he's
experienced guy actually, after nine years of engineering in a company, definitely, the
company still exists and you’ve been working with them for nine years definitely your
experienced guy, so, if he's not happy, he is not feeling safe or he is not getting enough to
really have a fair life, as you said, sending money to his back to his, home having
children, he will not stay with you, and that's an advantage that's really where we and
that's how the clients sometimes measure the competition when you have a project, when
you have a project with the client, it's not always measured by the price, it's most of the
time, especially in Abu Dhabi, now we start seeing this they look for the history they
want to get the review from you or from your clients many big projects we participated,
we had to bring certificates from the previous clients about your company, they don't care
about the price they want to care about your name, So, that was really that's the
competition It's not the Price,.

Interviewer:

OK. So now with the last question, How does the work environment within your organization
affect employee turnover?

Participant:

We just talk about it again, I mean, when you have a good environment, you have less
employees turnover good environment, less, bad environment, more, because you can see
companies change the technician every few months, you can see new guy appear, where
is the previous one? He left, Why? there was a problem, so, that company will really
bring a bad reputation or bad name to the market and they will not get any job even, so,
again, we have, you know in another way we can consider from another way like if you
do such a thing then you have a lot of turnovers then you lose because in UAE, you’ve
got cost to sponsor any person there and it's not a small cost they have a lot of costs we
need to pay for his visa for labor for a lot of things, we need to pay a lot of things, so,
when you really don't consider this point for a few months, if you don't really bring the
proper person from your beginning when we talk about hiring when you choose the
 76

proper person for that position and then you lose because you train him If he's good, you
train him, you give him like less salary after one year , he'll leave you and again, because
he found a better opportunity, so, again you start from zero If you bring a bad guy, you
will fire him so it's two different bad, so, the turnover will increase, OK, so you need to
really take care of your employees you take care of how you choose your employee from
the beginning, selection is very important, OK, in the end, you can't force anyone from
leaving you as we said, I have people now with us for 8-9 years I don't have any force to
leave any to force anyone to leave because it's in contract he can leave me at any time he
gives me notes for one month and finish why he's not leaving, because he's happy in the
company, he's really satisfied he's getting what he wants and in UAE you've got the, you
can see It's already appeared I mean you can see people really getting a lot of money you
can see people really feel comfortable those people will reflect on you, why I'm not like
that guy? OH, because I'm getting less salary, so, I have to look for different job, so,
there's a competition always people will take the good person or good technician
immediately, easily but again I get some people who really get an offer, maybe more than
what we pay, but they don't go because for them, it's not only the money that's why they
are really happy with that atmosphere as I said, the company is considered the second
family for everyone.

Interviewer:

Yeah, fair enough. So, I think we're done now, I would like to thank you again for being part of
our research studies. That’s really appreciated. Thank you. Again, thank you very much.

Participant:

thank you, Abbe, and I'm really happy to join this conversation I hope, Imean, I tried as
much as possible to provide about what we do, how we think, and how we see the future.
I mean how it's going to happen as I said, we are part of this planet, and we want to do
our best to continue because if we don't now take action, And really change our way of
thinking, As you said, to provide sustainable solutions or rules or way of thinking that
planet going to collapse after some time, It's, I think, all these things at the end is
reflecting on the life, on the real life of everyone.

Thanks a lot. All the best.

Interviewer:

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Have a lovely day.
 77

Participant:

Thank you. Same to you.

Bye bye.

Appendix IV
Gamma company, Participant Gamma

Participant:

All right. Do you, are you asking me or everyone?

Interviewer:

Yeah, I'm asking you.

Participant:

Yeah, no issues.
It's fine. You can keep with the way it is. There are no issues with that.

Interviewer:

Yeah, perfect. OK, perfect.

So we can start with the questions now.

Participant:

Do you want me to introduce myself or we can go and right into the question?

Interviewer:

I want you to introduce yourself a little bit and then at the same time, talk about what your
position is in the organization that you work with.

Participant:
 78

So basically I'm working with Gamma. I'm a Chief operating officer over there and it's a
company based in Pakistan, Sweden and in different cities of Pakistan as well, but also in
Sweden as well, but not to repeat it, to come straight to the point we are serving in
Pakistan with different Internet-based services, could be wipe, could it be IP service,
Could be VPN's, we are also serving now cloud services, we are giving cloud services.
we are also giving last-mile connectivity to telco operators. So this is what we are doing
and right now we are scaled up to 23 cities.

Interviewer:

All right, but how would you define sustainability from your own perspective?

Participant:

Regarding the company or regarding how the work is going. I mean is it related to the
company or you're asking in general the sustainability?
Interviewer:

No, from your perspective how you can define sustainability?

Participant:

Well, there are quite different definitions of sustainability, but I mean quite not sure about
it, to be honest. Could be something which is. I mean. If we. Could I'm not sure how you
want me to describe sustainability is It just like this?

Interviewer:

Maybe from the perspective of the company you working in the company, you know, yeah.
From that perspective, maybe. Does that make sense? What does sustainability mean to your
company? And then you as a COO?

Participant:

We can sustain in different kind of products. You can say could be any product like VPNs
could be in your services, could be cloud services, managed objects could be anything
like that. if it's related to, Gamma. Yeah, I'm not quite sure if that answered your
question, to be honest.
 79

Interviewer:

Yeah, it's fine. So, going to the next question. How would you describe your organization and
What they do? I think you've kind of touched on this question before. But if you can be more
specific about. What they do, for example here in Sweden specifically.

Participant:

In Sweden, we're providing services like manager object we are managing different kinds
of networks, we are managing, I will not disclose the customers, but I can disclose the
services we are providing the specific customers we are providing, support to networks
we are providing support for troubleshooting in-house problems like it could be VPN
problems it could be their internal architecture with current topology of the network It
could be cloud computing, So, we're troubleshooting different sort of, you know, different
sort of problems day-to-day and we are providing services which could also support like
an AWS, GCP or Azure, So these are some sort of services we are providing inside
Sweden right now and I will keep the name not visible or maybe not disclose the names
of the particular customers.

Interviewer:

Would you say that you? You know, the way you could describe the operations of your company
in Sweden as IT solutions. You could say?

Participant:

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, it is a sort of solutions, but more of, you know you can say uh
support plus network plus cloud troubleshooting. So yes it is an IT solution company
providing managed object solutions yes.

Interviewer:

So the next question is, what is your main corporate social responsibility strategy? The CSR
strategy.

Participant:
 80

Yes, the CRS strategy for us could be we are building our company on 4 core aspects.
One is support after sales and services, the next one is building the trust between us and
the customer, the third one is building the final product as per the requirement of the
customer and the last one giving them, you can see an add-on services as well, but it
could be just like it could be anything which they ask for even after the delivery of the
project.

Interviewer:

Yeah, so after the delivery of the project. Like service after sale?

Participant:

What we do is like the process works in this way, so, the sales come in, the lead comes in
from the lead, and we go towards the Technical Department where they do architecture
on the current topology of the network, then we slice it down into two categories, one
takes away from the lead architect, who is responsible for, you know, could be cost
optimization is done on that part and on the other side what is done is like to add on the
latest technology.

Interviewer:

OK, great.
Are SDGs an actively sought-after goal for your organization?
SDG is Sustainable Development Goal.

Participant:

It could because what we have is we have it's based on project to project, so, once the
project is delivered if the customer, plans to carry on with the after-sales and support with
us, Yes, we can do that in case the customer is not willing to proceed further, we let the
customer go further and you know, have their own services migrate it to AWS, So
basically it's the customer who decides to stay with us because after the project is done,
We hand over the migration to AWS and then that's it.

Interviewer:
 81

I think you misunderstand the question. I mean here, like is the Sustainable Development Goals
an actively sought-after goal for your organization? The SDGs include like for example in our
study we are studying employee quality and Economic growth and those kinds of things… these
goals are set by the UN, United Nations, so, are these SDGs part of your objectives in your
company?

Participant:

yes, it is done. Yes, it is done to some sort. Yes it is done.

Interviewer:

OK.
Could you maybe elaborate on how? For example, which aspects of these goals?

Participant:

How do we, you know, work with our employees to increase the SLS you say?

Interviewer:

Yeah, SDGs. Yeah.

Participant:

Yeah, it could be. It could be every once a month, we could have a growth plan with the
employees, it could be somewhere where the managers are directly connected to the
employees discussing what they have been doing or you can say what their progress is so
far. If that answered the question.

Interviewer:

OK.
And we can go to the next one. How does this organization balance the need for economic
growth with the need to promote resource management?

Participant:
 82

OK, so there are two factors here because recently we were affected by COVID, we saw
the inflation curve come in we saw the resources got cut down, we saw in a lot of
changes and within the company as well, So the HR what they do is basically we balance
the need we see the we can predict from the graphs or we can predict from our Salesforce
report. Uh, and see if we need 4, or maybe we need to scale up to five resources, or
maybe 10, 20 for a particular project, depending on the customer need, so we only focus
on what the customer requires, especially in Sweden, so we it could be it could be scaling
up till 15 sometimes we could have 15 web developers and to balance it off with the
project, we particularly ask the customer if they want that many developers within that
project.

Interviewer:

All right. Thank you. To the next question, how does the organization create jobs and promote
fair wages?

Participant:

That's a tricky question. So, what we do is like we have reporting evaluation and most
importantly we do weekly analysis for our employees and I mean, with the ongoing
inflation, what we do is basically we sit down with the employee to understand the
problems they're facing, especially with the wages and to keep it fair, we meet the market
requirements, so, we keep whatever for example, the job we could how we create the job
is basically based upon, once we receive a project, our HR managers or our managers
down there, they basically search the lookup the required staff or the resources for the
particular project, once the project is concluded, if we found good developer, we go
further with them.

Interviewer:

If we look. Into the next question, How does your organization help people develop the skills
they need to succeed in the workforce?

Participant:

For example, alright. Yeah, For this kind of stuff, we have certification credits, so, what
we do is like we gave or we have each employee has a certain amount of credits to sign
up to they can take or do AWS, GCP, or Azure certifications may be regularly or could be
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once a month, so, it depends on the customer, sorry, it depends on the employee himself,
yes.

Interviewer:

OK. So the next question is what are the tactics employed by your company to make sure people
are not exploited or mistreated in the workplace?

Participant:

We keep it open so the employees have direct access to me, and my e-mail address and
we have, an anonymous survey ongoing within the company so they could fill in anytime
the software which is called officevibe, we use that to keep it totally anonymous, yes.

Interviewer:

So and how does your organization help and support small businesses and entrepreneurs?

Participant:

So they OK, so these are you're targeting the SME's small medium enterprises, correct?
So what we do is we enable them to do more business by providing them with the
resources they require.

Interviewer:

So do you have any projects to support these entrepreneurs or any collaboration let's say?

Participant:

yes, But I do not want to disclose the names, because of the market competition,
competition.

Interviewer:

Maybe you can. I was going to say maybe you can describe exactly what type of things you do in
the partnerships. Like, are there any differences from the other partnerships?

Participant:
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Yes, different from other partnerships because in the EU we have a trend of following a
certain partnership where it could be the project is coming to a certain company we act as
a third-party provider we could provide them with those resources. What we do is we
outsource the resource for them and we complete the project hand it over to the parent
company and let them do the rest of the stuff, So, what we do is basically how we are
different from other people is basically we give them Is source based resource based
charges so could be for example one project could be I can give you an example you can
say, so, we had a customer who came up with an AWS migration project recently and he
needed a cloud engineer who wanted to do the migration over the AWS Account and he
told us that this is our budget and we need to meet that, so, in that particular budget in
that particular time frame, we try to find resources and we try to accomplish those given
targets to uplift them into increase theirs essentially in developing a good partnership
with them. Is that enough? Or do you want me to elaborate more.

Interviewer:

No, I think that that makes sense.

Yeah, what is your organization doing to reduce poverty and inequality in the areas where you
where it operates?

Participant:

Add more people, we are hiring more people

Yeah, that is increasing poverty, so, what we can do is like we give, we can say bonuses
or incentives to people who join us just for internships, making them skilful to join the
job market the throne, so, that will defeat the unemployment and which will decrease the
poverty in the country. OK.

Interviewer:

Can you give an example of a project or initiative your organization has undertaken to improve
working conditions for employees?

Participant:

For the employees, you can say you're asking what projects we take to increase the number of
resources within the company.

Interviewer:
 85

To improve the working conditions for employees.

Participant:

Alright, so you so the projects are dependent the number of resources we hire. Is that what you're
asking, or you're asking how we are increasing the number of employees?

Interviewer:

I could explain it.

Participant:

Yeah. Can you explain it?

Interviewer:

Like, how or do you have any examples of project you have worked with that could improve
your organization and that can undertake the improvement of working like for the working
conditions for your employees?

Participant:

Every project has its own lesson to learn from we have, we learned from each milestone
we accomplish and every time an employee goes through a migration project or any sort
of support or troubleshooting or architectural work, we are learning day-to-day and the
best part over here is like each project we were just taken up with certain team members,
they have to write down what they have achieved or learned throughout the project
process, so it could be something we refer to later on as a runbook for other employees to
learn from If you need examples that could be a recent project with XYZ Company Just
to keep their name off the record.

Interviewer:

So, I think you might have like mentioned some similarities to this question but how does
your organization work to ensure that all workers regarding gender and ethnicity has
equal opportunities for advancement.

Participant:
 86

So, our HR is keeping that in view and from our HR it's going towards the people's
manager Pops team what happens is basically we do a certain survey, also called as the
officevibes survey, what happens is like every month and yearly, we run out different
questions where we have to let the employees within the company, uh, you can say speak
up anonymously to describe if we are If the company is keeping the gender equality
within the company. So it could be, and plus after every year we keep a close look to our
HR department making sure that we are not hiring more men or women and we're
keeping equal, equality within the company and making it more, you know,
environmentally friendly for people to love work here.

Interviewer:

So, when you recognize that you have, let's say, men more than women In your company then
let’s say, you need an IT developer. Then you make such a requirement in this case. like you ask
for a need an IT female in your requirements.

Participant:

Absolutely yes. We run out, yes, we go specifically if you see that there's a certain kind of
gender which is taking over to another one, we run, we go out and we find resources If
we need a female IT developer, we will go and run out our ad, which will include those
requirements and specifically we will mention that, yes, yeah, to keep a balance.

Interviewer:

Alright.
Now, Can you discuss any partnerships or collaborations your organization has formed with local
communities or other organizations to promote decent work and economic growth?

Participant:

With economic growth, yes, we have done partnership, but again there is I cannot
disclose this, but we could have collaborated with different you know companies who are
making products which are good for long-run within the environment, and I think that's
what we are basically collaborating to increase the employment and decreasing the
poverty but again, coming back, yes.

Interviewer:
 87

And maybe also touch upon the local aspect, because since you know your company is operating
both in Pakistan and in Sweden, maybe, is there anything, like are you maybe doing anything
targeting, you know, maybe, employing more people in Pakistan and or Sweden or something
like that. No, that makes sense.

Participant:

No, we are keeping a good balance between Sweden and Pakistan we would not like to
keep or create you, can say, organization, where we have all our techs in Pakistan, no
we're keeping a good close balance within Sweden and Pakistan, making sure that each
time customer who is any EU can meet up with our team leads to discuss their problems
and increase, you know, the outcome of the project, so, we are making sure that each time
any project comes in we have a face to face meeting with the customer who is within EU
with our within our EU team leader, so, you know we are only outsourcing those projects
which are coming through to our partner, under a certain tight budget to meet the
requirements.

Interviewer:

OK. That makes sense. I was more touching upon like, you know, certain businesses? They're up
like, actually, you kind of mentioned that, but mainly discussing like, maybe you get a project in
Pakistan or based more on Pakistan, will you hire more people from Pakistan for certain projects
like that or maybe.

Participant:

No, we will see who's which resource is better could be in the EU, could be in Pakistan,
and we will see who fits better in that particular project we will have an interview session
with them, ask them and understand if he understands the project otherwise we will not
let this go to Pakistan or we have a project they will have people, no, we don't mix it up.
No, we keep it.

Interviewer:

Yeah, so, it's mostly based on merit or what you think will perform the best here.

Participant:

Yeah, to be to make it fair and square, to be honest, yeah.

 88

Interviewer:

I understand.
So, What is the long-term vision of your organization in terms of promoting decent work and
economic growth?

Participant:

We are collaborating with the already companies who are running with the EU, we are
collaborating with I can take the name of one company which is All On Tech, we are
trying to collaborate with them to increase the delivery of projects and training
employees and increase their skills plus to decrease the poverty, we are upbringing more
employees in the company to match the target and this will also affect have a decent
effect on the economy after a certain time, maybe six months, so, we have three months
and every quarterly we have we can say employment at where we can hire more people to
deliver more projects.

Interviewer:

OK. Can you discuss any challenges your organization has faced in promoting sustainable
economic growth and social welfare and what measures have you taken to address these
challenges?

Participant:

A lot of challenges, if you talk about only Sweden, could be union laws, we have faced a
lot of challenges to meet them, because in Sweden we, the unions are protecting
employment and those laws could be crossing lines between the employee and employer
so, we are facing, because if we hire someone in Sweden, we have to make sure that we
are compliant with the Union to meet the particular rules and regulations of employment,
and the second issue what we have faced, It's like we are having more you can say we are
having issues with keeping and equality between gender equality between IT male people
and you can say a female, but we are trying to make sure that it is fair and square at the
end of the day.

Interviewer:

Yeah, kind of a follow-up question.

What kind of challenges you are facing in Pakistan?
 89

Participant:

Yeah, right now in Pakistan, we are facing a challenge as far as hiring and keeping a good
resource over there. But yes, we are facing a bit of an issue when we are training them
because as soon as you train them and uplift them, their skills employee leave you for
better opportunities so, to sustain them, we have to keep a good you can say we you have
to keep a good mutual understanding between the employee and employer.

Interviewer:

Like a good working environment basically.

Participant:

You can say yes. Yeah, a better working environment than our competitor.

Interviewer:

Yeah, kind of a follow-up question to the fact that you said that, you know you had to, because of
EU laws and you know, Union laws, you have to keep a balance between the male and female
workers and since your company is a part of the IT field, would you say that it is maybe a little
harder given the given the type of market that you are in to find like female workers or do you
think that that challenge is not?

Participant:

No, it's not a big challenge because we're keeping a good check to keep a good balance
and especially working EU, we're making sure that this is in good hands, so, yes, we have
a fair gender equality within the company. Yes, OK.

Interviewer:

OK, so the next question is how does the organization manage the recruitment of employees? So
I need here to tell me more about the recruitment process.

Participant:

So, there are three phases, one is the general talent acquisition team, who goes for the
search for, you know, good skilful resources in the market, then after that phase, our team
lead has a discussion has a comes with the question and have a discussion with the
 90

employee regarding the projects, we will do the outcomes we are going to expect from
him and then the third phase is we give them a technical uh project to solve a problem in
that or maybe you can give like a coding exam, You can say, a small quiz to see if he
actually knows what he is applying to and to understand and to better understand if he's
qualified to come through, so these are three phases If he goes towards recruitment.

Interviewer:

All right. So to the next question, to what extent would you argue that your organization
sustainable practices are affected by social and political pressure?

Participant:

We are keeping ourselves away from political and social issues, well, we are addressing
them in a way that we are following them, but we are not making sure that that affects our
company because we have to, we have an EU setup and then we have a different an Asian
setup, So that has nothing to do with political issues ongoing, especially the war between
Russia and Ukraine, so, we're keeping a fair balance between both sides If that answered
the question.

Interviewer:

I have a follow-up to that, though certain social issues though and you could argue that this issue
is also a little bit political, for example, the issue of COVID a few years back, how did that for
example, Affect the business, then?

Participant:

That's good.
So in COVID, we were limited to have a face to face meetings with our customers. In
that case, we were limited to understanding better understand you can say the customer
requirement and on the other end we usually don't allow remote working, but we have to.
So, that was another challenge to understand with, So, how to allow the employee to
work online, with his laptop sitting somewhere in the world.

Interviewer:

OK.
 91

So going to the next question. To what extent would you argue that your organization is
following a sustainable business model in comparison to a business model that has an element of
sustainability?

Participant:

I would have to think on that one, to be honest, to see , stick being you know we can
come back to that question later on. Let me have some more thought process on that one.

Interviewer:
No issues
No problem.

If we go to the next question then. How do you think your organizations sustainability practice?
This gives it a competitive advantage.

Participant:

Yes, We can meet any budget given by our partner because we are outsourcing our
employees, so, we can meet anything any requirement for the customers plus we have
skills for employees and we are adding more and more certified engineers day-to-day,
plus we are educating them and to add more we are making sure, they're understanding
what they're doing day-to-day, and keep in the good environment, of course.

Interviewer:

Yeah. Alright.
So how does the work environment within your company affect employee turnover?

Participant:

It affects a lot, I usually say it doesn't, but it does. The reason why it does is because If
you have a good environment employees would love to come to the office every day,
Let's be honest, and if you have like an environment where it's stressful, people are
panicking around, No one likes to go there, plus you have refreshments there and
employee would like to after like 30 minutes or 40 minutes, have like a small coffee
break to, you know, roam around, get, you know, get some fresh air and think what he's
doing in life.
It's absolutely it it it affects a lot.
 92

Interviewer:

So you have a like friendly atmosphere, let's say in your company.

Participant:

Yes, we do. Yes, we do.

Interviewer:

And, I have a question, you've mentioned that you are hiring people for each project, so, after
you finish this project, those people will leave the company.

Participant:

Where do that resources go? So whenever we hire someone, we make sure that it's
transparent to them that we are hiring them for that particular project, which is based
upon for like it could be 6 month contract period. So for example you have see, Yes, we
make it obvious for the employee to understand what he's signing up to.

Interviewer:

So they are freelancers, let's say.

Participant:

so. Yeah, they could be freelancers, but there are some people, usually what we do like,
so, far we have heard, you can say most of them, and because after our project, they
understand the value of the company and what we can deliver on the project.

Interviewer:

So we can say that this project is like a test.

Participant:

It's not a test. it’s a customer project. There is a difference between the quiz we take in the
interview and there is a difference between the project.
 93

Interviewer:

No, I don't mean that, it's the interview test. I meant it's like it's even a Challenge for the
employee to prove himself.

Participant:

Yes, yes. No matter what would be a challenge, not a test, because. If he fails in the test
the customer will kill us at the end of the day, we have to meet the budget, plus we have
to understand what the customer is asking for, so, we are keeping it, and transferring it to
the customer and the employee.

Interviewer:

So I need to ask a follow-up Question to this because I'm a little confused. So you have
permanent employees as well as these freelancers? Or how does that work?

Participant:

And each time, as the project ends before the project ends, we make sure that we have
new projects in, we don't bench any people that they can sit back and wait or get fired
afterwards because they were with us for six months. We tried to get them new projects
as soon as possible, and, yes, the flow is there, so, I don't think, so, anyone which is
within the project gets fired afterwards, either he's training someone or either he's getting
paid for doing certain small changes or giving after sales and support to the customer.

Interviewer:

So you're. The company tries to ensure that you know each of the employees gets projects Then
if you know if they're on your full-time payroll.

Participant:

Yes, yes, absolutely.

Interviewer:

OK, that's interesting.

Participant:
 94

And even if sometimes you don't have to get a project, you can train someone and you
can enhance your skill and you can be on the learning period, so, that's fine with the
company.

Interviewer:

OK. Well, this kind of brings us back to the question we asked before regarding the business
model. So like, Would you say let me phrase this a little bit differently, but would you say that
the business model that your business follows your company follows, would you say that it's one
where you know you guys, Kind of, What do you call it, You guys have employed, like
sustainable activities and you know you use sustainable activities or would you rather say that it's
one where sustainability is inbuilt in the system in the model that the company use?

Participant:

So it is like If coming back to the question with some thoughts on that one, what we do
each time we bring in the employee, we see the skill set, we he has, it could be a filter
sort of stuff which could increase the business sustainability within the core aspects of
our project delivery team, our delivery goal, so, in that case, yes, we actually what we do
is we can, where we see the skills they have, we increase their skills with them, we uplift
them and there are sometimes some people who are not willing to learn more or do more,
so, then the company has to give them a certain time, a certain kind of they tell them that
they need to leave or maybe like a notice period for that.

Interviewer:

So yeah, would you say then that the answer is you have aspects of sustainability in your
business model, or would you say that your business model is sustainable in its core then? And
that's the question.
Which one would you?

Participant:

Yes, the first one.

Interviewer:

The first one, so it has aspects of sustainability, but you wouldn't argue that it's sustainable to its
core maybe.
 95

Participant:

It could be. Yes, I think I will. Yeah, I will go with the first one. Yes, yes, absolutely.

Interviewer:

OK. That's interesting. So do we have any more questions guys or?

No, we're done.
OK, that was intresting.

Participant:

Anything which is left unanswered.

Interviewer:

No, I think I think we got what we needed. It was pretty interesting.