Purpose - To determine whether the organisations more strategically committed to its stakeholders present
better social and financial performance and, based on this relationship, know the state of the art of the
Spanish sectors’ approach to the sustainable development.
Design/methodology/approach - This paper analyses the sustainability approach of a sample of 52 Spanish
listed firms. This process is based on the study of different indexes generated in order to evaluate the
company’s commitment through its stakeholders, the social and financial performance of these organisations,
and the relationship between them. Previous results showed a positive and not significant relationship
between these variables and a positive financial performance. This paper replicates a former research by
introducing a fuzzy- logic- based methodology in order to generate the aforementioned indexes.
Findings -The current results support the conclusions formerly obtained and simultaneously demonstrate that
the big Spanish companies are at an incipient stage of development of a clearly sustainability - oriented management.
Research limitations/implications - The unavailability of a long series of organisations sustainability
information is an obstacle for a broader analysis. This research could motivate the usefulness of the fuzzy
logic methodology for analysing the business sustainability approach and to develop studies on the corporate
social performance.
Originality/value - The use of fuzzy logic methodology for the generation of indexes related to the
organisations social responsibility and sustainability result
