Evaluating Firm Quadruple Bottom Line (QBL) Performance: Development and Validation of a Brief Scale

Abstract

ABSTRACT The quadruple bottom line (QBL) has emerged as a critical framework for assessing corporate performance beyond economic, social, and environmental metrics. Although previous models have proposed additional dimensions such as governance, growing attention is now being directed toward the cultural dimension as a fundamental component of holistic corporate sustainability. However, despite its increasing relevance, no psychometrically validated instrument has been available to measure the QBL. This study develops and validates a brief 15‐item QBL scale that integrates all four dimensions of corporate sustainability, including the new cultural pillar. A rigorous mixed‐methods approach was adopted, involving expert panel validation and focus groups to develop the brief scale, followed by quantitative testing to confirm validity and reliability with a sample of 205 general managers from small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Spanish bioeconomy forest sector. Exploratory factor analysis conducted with SPSS 29, along with confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling using AMOS 29, revealed strong reliability and validity at both the first‐order (individual dimensions) and second‐order (overall QBL) levels. These results demonstrate that cultural performance can be integrated into a multidimensional sustainability framework, enhancing the explanatory power of sustainability assessments beyond triple bottom line models and promoting a shift toward viewing sustainability as an interconnected construct rather than as separate domains. The resulting QBL scale constitutes an initial effort to provide a theoretically grounded and psychometrically sound instrument for holistic sustainability assessment by newly integrating the cultural dimension, whereas its empirical validation has been confined to Spanish bioeconomy SMEs.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Business Strategy and the Environment, 2026 · DOI ↗