The Balanced Scorecard of Kaplan and Norton is a management tool that supports the successful implementation of corporate strategies. It has been discussed and considered widely in both practice and research. By linking operational and non-financial corporate activities with causal chains to the firm's long-term strategy, the Balanced Scorecard supports the alignment and management of all corporate activities according to their strategic relevance. The Balanced Scorecard makes it possible to take into account non-monetary strategic success factors that significantly impact the economic success of a business. The Balanced Scorecard is thus a promising starting-point to also incorporate environmental and social aspects into the main management system of a firm. Sustainability management with the Balanced Scorecard helps to overcome the shortcomings of conventional approaches to environmental and social management systems by integrating the three pillars of sustainability into a single and overarching strategic management tool. After a brief discussion of the different possible forms of a Sustainability Balanced Scorecard the article takes a closer look at the process and steps of formulating a Sustainability Balanced Scorecard for a business unit. Before doing so, the basic conventional approach of the Balanced Scorecard and its suitability for sustainability management will be outlined in brief.
Despite considerable interest into circular economy, it remains undertheorized and underdeveloped. In response, this article advances circular economy by drawing on two theories to explain how firms can increase the circularity of resource use and why they are incentivized to do so. We refer to Modern Portfolio Theory to link the resource use of individual companies to the resource use of a group of firms. In doing so, we show how—and under which conditions—resource use decreases when circulated at the group level. We then refer to principles from evolutionary biology to explain why it is beneficial to structure resource flows at the group level, even when the resource-reducing effect might not materialize for individual firms. In combining both perspectives we challenge entrenched ways of “doing” circular economy: We offer an integrated theoretical approach that helps inform managers' decision-making on circular resource use in practice.
The mainstream of the literature on corporate sustainability follows the win–win paradigm, according to which economic, environmental and social sustainability aspects can be achieved simultaneously; indeed, corporate sustainability has often been defined by the intersection of these three areas. However, given the multi-faceted and complex nature of sustainable development, we argue that trade-offs and conflicts in corporate sustainability are the rule rather than the exception. Turning a blind eye to trade-offs thus results in a limited perspective on corporate contributions to sustainable development. In order to overcome this situation, we propose an initial framework for the analysis of trade-offs in corporate sustainability. By doing so, we pursue two aims. First, the framework serves as a starting point for a more systematic analysis of trade-offs in corporate sustainability, as it identifies different levels and dimensions to characterize such trade-offs. Second, it serves to contextualize the contributions to this special issue on trade-offs in corporate sustainability. Based on the framework, we finally point to some promising avenues for future research on trade-offs in, and a more inclusive notion of, corporate sustainability.
For business and environmental reasons, increased understanding of green consumer behavior is essential. This paper addresses consumer adoption and non-adoption of a high involvement eco-innovation (the alternative fuel vehicle, AFV). The purpose is to integrate two research streams to explore factors driving and hindering adoption. The factors are rooted in environmental psychology research and the diffusion of innovation literature. Survey results on Swedish car owners are reported. The results indicate that adopters and non-adopters differ on norms, attitudes, novelty seeking and on how innovation attributes are perceived. Furthermore, the results show that the groups rank car attributes such as fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions differently. The main contribution of the paper is the integration of norms and attitudes together with consumer adoption factors in analyzing green consumer behavior in relation to a high involvement product. The implications for business and marketing strategy and for environmental policy are discussed.
Ecosystem degradation and social sustainability have become important issues in the corporate sphere during the last few decades. However, research discussing corporate social responsibility and related concepts has often focused on larger companies, sometimes neglecting the specifics of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The main purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between two common strategic orientations, market orientation (MO) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO), in relation to sustainability commitment, sustainability practices and management values in SMEs. Questionnaire responses from 450 Swedish SMEs were analyzed, confirming the influence of MO, EO and sustainability practices on commitment to sustainability, implying that firms committed to sustainability see both market and entrepreneurial advantages of sustainability. The results also show that different parts of MO and EO differ in importance for commitment to sustainability among SMEs. Implications concern the importance for firms and policy makers to work with sustainability issues using both internal and external perspectives.
Sustainable development requires coopetition, that is, the cooperation of organiza-tions that compete at the same time. Research on coopetition for sustainability issparse. From a sustainability perspective, coopetition contributes to sustainabilitywhen it makes a positive contribution on the societal level. Existing research oncoopetition however focuses on organizational outcomes. In this paper, we link orga-nizational and societal outcomes of coopetition. We show that for the simple case oftwo coopting firms and an economic and an environmental dimension, there are 51different combinations that make a positive contribution to sustainability. All butone of these combinations consist of a mix of positive and negative outcomes. Weidentify four types of trade‐offs that can occur in coopetition for sustainability andthat point to different pathways of achieving sustainability.
In strategy research, there is a consensus that strategy making resides on a continuum from planned to emergent where most strategies are made in a mixed way. Different contingency factors have been suggested to explain the factors that influence strategy making. Sustainability research seems to overlook most of this development and assumes instead that sustainability strategies are made in a purely planned way. We contribute to a better understanding of the role of different strategy making modes for sustainability in three ways. First, we point to the bias towards planned strategy formation in sustainability research. Second, we propose a new contingency factor to help explain sustainability strategy making based on the nature of the problem addressed. Third, we discuss strategy making for different types of sustainability problems. We argue that planned strategy making is expected for salient and non-wicked problems while emergent strategy making is likely for non-salient and wicked problems.
Recent conceptual studies identify gain, normative and hedonic factors as three categories of motivations of consumer proenvironmental behavior. However, empirical understanding of how these motivations interact and affect proenvironmental behavior is limited. This study is based on a survey of car owners in Sweden (N = 573) and uses structural equation modeling to analyze the data. The empirical findings point to the importance of all three motivations (gain, normative and hedonic) in consumer electric vehicle adoption intentions. Furthermore, for consumers who perceive high social norms regarding sustainable consumption, the direct effect of hedonic motivations on behavioral intention is stronger, and the direct effect of gain motivations is insignificant. The business strategy implications indicate that targeting consumers who perceive high social norms in relation to proenvironmental behavior and communicating the hedonic and normative aspects of proenvironmental behaviors to this group might be more effective than general mass communication.
Cross-sectoral collaboration is argued to be vital for business model innovation for sustainability and the tension-filled choices it involves but brings its own complexities. We therefore investigate how institutional logics and power affect the interests and dependencies of City planners and real-estate developers involved in developing a business model for sustainable mobility. Through analyzing how partners deal with tension-filled choices regarding business model elements, we develop a model to explain how compromises are made in partnerships characterized by conflicting interests coupled to strong interdependencies. We finish by cautioning that conflicting interests and power characteristics may delimit the potential for such cross-sectoral collaborations to contribute to sustainable development in sectors where public actors are used to rely on their authority.
Increased focus on sustainability has made firms' value creation increasingly boundary spanning and complex. This begs the question of how business model research describes firm's external relationships, motivating us to undertake a systematic literature review. In analyzing 49 articles, we discuss and problematize four conceptualizations of external relationships - collaboration, alliances, networks, and ecosystems - arriving at nine propositions that clarify their meaning and refer to either firm-centric or collective business models for sustainability. In combining these findings with review results from conventional business model research we identify three main blind spots in extant business model for sustainability research, regarding coopetition, wider inter-organizational and sustainability tensions, and power. Based on these blind spots, we sketch a research agenda that could theorize business models for sustainability without neglecting their inherent tensions and contradictions.