Umeå University's logo

Equating circularity with narrowing and slowing lets virtually all businesses join the bandwagon.

This paper uses the notion of material affordances to show that a focus on how people engage with materials helps understanding how organizations transit toward sustainability. Material affordances refer to the enablements and constraints afforded by materials to someone engaging with an environment for a particular purpose. Based on a qualitative study of a company's efforts at becoming circular, we show that material affordances are evolutive as organizational members shift focus from the development of products to the establishment of a circular business model. We also show that affordances are distributed across the company's circular ecosystem. Between what they enable and prevent, they invite humans to a dynamic engagement with materials that decenters human agencies to incorporate material agency in such efforts. A key contribution of the notion of material affordances is to put the relationships of humans and materials at the core of a transition toward circularity and sustainability.

This paper explains how corporations can develop market-based activities to influence environmental policies. The empirical focus is on how Swedish apparel retailers qualify take-back systems for used clothes and textiles assteps toward creating circular fashion. An analysis of the qualities that retailers attach to take-back systemsshows how qualification helps corporations feature fashion as potentially sustainable and able to develop circularmaterial flows, with the aim to enroll staff, customers, and other stakeholders in new behaviors andpatterns of responsibility. We apply the notion of corporate activism to demonstrate how corporations usequalification to engage in market-based activities with the aim of influencing the regulatory agenda.

In this paper, we apply to infrastructure development the notion of qualification that Callon et al. (2002) introduced to explain the dynamics of markets for products and services. Based on how Swedish clothing retailers qualify take-back systems for used clothes and textiles, we shows that qualification rests on a combination of action nets, storytelling, and agency of things. We shows also that qualification does not simply draw on existing referents; it can be a definitional effort that performs the reality that it refers to. Finally, drawing on how Swedish clothing retailers use their qualification of take-back systems to provide a concrete definition of circular fashion, we claim that infrastructure qualification is a way for corporation to behave as political actors.

New technologies, market-based solutions, and regulation have proven inadequate in remedying today's human caused ecological crises. This suggests that detrimental social practices need to be fundamentally changed. While social innovation is one possible approach for such change, a comprehensive picture of research on social innovation in relation to ecological challenges is missing. Therefore, with an emphasis on so-called strong sustainability, this article's purpose was to investigate social innovation's potential in relation to ecological crises, to identify important gaps, and advance research implications. A systematic literature review of social innovation research that address environmental issues was carried out, and the resulting literature was analyzed according to sustainability and five dimensions of social innovation. To reap more of social innovation's potential in our time of ecological crises, we suggest a move in social innovation research towards strong sustainability and propose such research avenues within each of the five dimensions of social innovation: conceptualization, environmental needs and challenges, key resources, capabilities, and constraints, types of governance, networks and actors, and, finally, process dynamics for strongly sustainable social innovation.

This paper adopts a waste-centric analysis of Product-Service Systems (PSSs) to demonstrate that they do not automatically contribute to a dematerialization of the economy, a decoupling of production from material and energy consumption, and thus a transition toward sustainability. A qualitative analysis of various Nordic fashion PSSs that uses a combination of Tukker’s (2004) classification of PSSs and the European waste hierarchy model demonstrates that the waste effect of a PSS is independent of its being product-oriented, use-oriented, or result-oriented. Rather, the effect depends on how the business model of the PSS organizes material flows at production, distribution, use, and post-consumption stages in relationship to prevailing waste regimes where the PSS operates.We suggest that if a PSS is to reduce its waste effect and contribute to dematerialization, its business model should design material flows that fit with the prevailing waste regimes within the area it operates and prioritize waste prevention before considering reuse, recycling, energy recovery, and landfilling.

Många miljöproblem är relaterade till mänskligt beteendeoch kan därför hanteras genom att det specifika beteendet ändras. Frivilliga interventioner används därför för att hjälpa människor att förändra sitt beteende. Kommuner kan organisera interventioner för att få människor att förändra sina resvanor genom metoder såsom finansiellt stöd, utveckling av infrastruktur samt marknadsförings- och informationskampanjer (Gärling och Schuitema, 2007). Sådana metoder knuffar eller inspirerar människor till nytt beteende.

Den här rapporten berättar om en sådan intervention med fokus på att stödja ett alternativt beteende (att leva utan bil) och på att skapa förståelse för vilken betydelse en förändring i beteende kan ha för motivation och attityder tillatt reducera eller avstå från bilåkande.Utgångspunkten var att bilen helt skulle uteslutas som transportalternativ och familjerna parkerade därför bilen under de tre månader som testperioden varade. Familjerna uppmanades att, via foto, dokumentera mätarställningen före och efter testperioden. Det handlade således inte om att reducera bilåkande under testperioden utan om att helt avstå och att därmed förändra ett beteende genom att utesluta ett vanebeteende.

Kommunen skapade, tillsammans med samarbetspartners, förutsättningar för familjerna att leva bilfritt genom att erbjuda flera olika alternativa transportlösningar såsom busskort till samtliga familjemedlemmar, en elcykel per familj samt tillgång till lådcykel och bilpool.Testperioden bestämdes till tre månader och varade mellan 15 september och 15 december 2018. Det tar tid att ställa om vanor och beteenden och upptäcka nya sätt att hantera transporter och andra vardagsaktiviteter och vi ville ge deltagarna den tiden. Vi ville dessutom att testperioden skulle innehålla en årstidsväxling för att förstå hur väder påverkar upplevelsen av att leva utan bil. Tidigare studier om Umebornas resvanor har visat att många använder cykel fram till första snöfallet för att sedan övergå till bil.En rekryteringskampanj till testet genomfördes via sociala medier och bussreklam och intresserade familjer fick fylla i ett webbformulär som bland annat innehöll frågor om hushållets sammansättning, hur ofta och i vilka sammanhang bilen användes samt vilka motiv familjen hade för deltagande i testperioden. Urvalsprocessen inleddes således som enform av självrekrytering, men med kriteriet att familjen ägde bil och var beredd att prova ett liv utan.  

In this chapter we take a look at some, primarily, environmental sustainability issues in Sweden. Sweden is in many aspects a rich country with high social and economic welfare and it usually comes out as a country that has handled environmental challenges well. However, from a consumption perspective, Swedish consumers are among the world leaders when it comes to metrics such as ecological footprint and carbon dioxide emissions per capita. By using two paradigmatic views, the Dominant Social Paradigm (DSP) and the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) we analyze sustainability in Sweden with a particular focus on energy use. We look at sustainability in the three broad areas of policies, corporate activities and consumption and in these areas we delve deeper into environmental sustainability issues concerning recycling and waste, energy efficiency, circular business models, sustainable consumer behaviors in relation to cars and transport, and responsible investments. We end the chapter by discussing implications for the future and the analytical framework and by developing a middle ground which we call ambiguous wavering.

Paradox theory has not yet considered how paradoxes interact when they are brought together. To explore such knotting we investigate coopetition for sustainability, when competitors collaborate to address environmental concerns. We use a case study of three examples of collaborative activities between housing companies in Belarus to display how these two paradoxes are knotted together. We find that coopetition brings less tension and is used as a means to address stronger sustainability tensions, enabling firms to partially achieve ‘two needs with one deed’. Based on our findings we suggest that how knotting appears is affected by the type of paradoxes involved, the strength and dynamics of their tensions, and their relationships to each other. We conclude with a call for more research particularly in more competitive settings and with other types of paradoxes. 

Research is scarce on how competitors share knowledge with the intent to create balanced economic, social and environmental value. In this paper we conduct a single, in-depth case study and apply the System Dynamics approach to investigate how knowledge is shared and leveraged, as a system that evolves over time. In the developed model we identify causal loops that reinforce and hinder this system, including efforts both to work out, create and balance economic, social and environmental value. Based on the applied approach we suggest managerial mechanisms that could simultaneously regulate knowledge sharing interactions and balance sustainability demands.

Organizational members are likely to face more than one paradox simultaneously. In order to conceptualize how paradoxes are knotted together and influence each other, paradox research needs to better account for dynamics and integrative aspects. In this paper we introduce the System Dynamics approach which we apply to coopetition for sustainability. Via an in-depth case study of a large-scale Swedish project to create a brand new, sustainable residential area, we are able to trace how the two paradoxes (coopetition and sustainability) influence each other but also take turns in dominating the processual unfolding. Our study contributes by developing and illustrating an approach to conceptualizing knotted paradoxes in general and coopetition for sustainability in particular.

Strongly sustainable entrepreneurship refers to an entrepreneurship based upon ecological economics that attempts to conceptualise value without reducing value solely to market demand. On a hot and full earth strongly sustainable entrepreneurship is needed to maintain economic activities within biophysical limits. This paper asks what business models that could be based on such entrepreneurship and how they could be developed and designed. Through a systematic review of the literature on sustainable business models insights are gathered and discussed. It is concluded that the business models of strongly sustainable entrepreneurs need to include feedback from natural scientists and to be developed in a collective process, but also may demand new legal forms. Moreover, value should be conceived as both created and captured in a network, where stakeholders protect the interests of each other and thereby enable ventures to survive and activities to continue.

Recently the fashion industry has been criticized for not taking responsibility for the amounts of garments going to waste. This critique adds to the previous list of problematizations of the fashion industry. In this presentation I focus on fashion as a contested practice, one that is subject to extensive and continuous critique from various stakeholders regarding multiple issues. I use institutional theory to discuss different ways the industry has deployed to defend and maintain this practice. A case study of adoption of circular economy within Sweden serves as an example. Here firms have implemented various activities to circumvent critique, seemingly aiming to prolong the life of garments, reduce waste, increase reuse and instigate recycling. Particularly common are take-back systems, services that provide consumers with the possibility to return used garments and receive a discount. The case study illustrates different types of institutional work effective at different levels, for instance political action, collaboration with competitors and decoupling. While such institutional work also entails minor practice change, the main outcome appears to be that practice continues much in the same way. I then discuss the usefulness of the framing of fashion as a contested practice and, drawing on the case, what this particular framing can help us understand about contemporary fashion. I argue that it helps us gain a broader image of fashion and what it may mean in a complex world. And the various ways that this image develops.

This paper addresses the paradox that occurs when entrepreneurship is combined with sustainable development. The notion of strong sustainability is used to reconcile the paradox. [1] Strong sustainability closely adheres to what natural science tells us regarding the state of the Earth system and its functions. It is a particular way of understanding the needs of future generations insofar as it states that they will at least need the integrity of the Earth system to be intact in order to meet their needs. This fact is what enables and underpins all reliable social and economic development. The strong sustainability approach therefore mandates that the notion of Earth system integrity be prioritized in any societal decision making, including that of entrepreneurs. The paper concludes with a discussion of the different ways in which entrepreneurs can integrate Earth systems thinking into their commercial endeavors.

This study examines how potential institutional entrepreneurs in the Swedish policy process construct an emerging institutional logic to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the Swedish agricultural sector. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between this emerging logic and the prevailing logics. A case study is used to investigate a project led by the Swedish Board of Agriculture, and qualitative methods are applied to reveal how policy makers reflect upon and discuss prevailing goals and templates. The results demonstrate that templates currently in use are handled in four ways: diffusion (or failure) and translation (or failure). Failures occur when translation or diffusion is discussed but subsequently dropped, due to, for example, resistance. The conclusion is that the new logic is less of a divergent break with the prevailing logics and more of a co-mingling containing changed, reused and new templates rationalized by pre-existing as well as new political goals.

Despite increased awareness of environmental crisis and social inequity the world is becoming more, not less, unsustainable. Obviously there is great inertia, a disinclination to enact change, in for instance environmentally detrimental practices. While there is much in the literature to explain inertia at the individual, organizational and societal level, there is a gap concerning approaches that focus upon the industrial level. This paper addresses this gap by developing an analytical approach based upon insti- tutional theory brought together with the ontological principles of strong sustainability. Two interrelated case studies, concerning greenhouse gas reduction in the Swedish agrifield, are used to develop the approach. The empirical results show that greenhouse gas reduction is used in support for convergent changes within the industry, for instance to motivate increased efficiency and yields. Hence, the paper contributes to the sustainable development-literature by providing an analytical approach that can be utilized to increase the understanding of change processes at the industrial level. This approach is then discussed and further developed to accommodate for the case results.

To avoid dangerous climate change a massive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is required in a relative short time span. However, as development is moving in the wrong direction, there appears to be great inertia in changing activities. This dissertation’s overarching purpose is, from an institutional perspective, to advance the understanding of greenhouse gas-related inertia, as well as change, in industrial agri-activities. This purpose is addressed in four individual but related papers and an introductory chapter. A case study methodology is utilized to advance knowledge regarding greenhouse gas-related inertia and change. Two change initiatives involving the Swedish Board ofAgriculture, the designated expert authority on agricultural matters, were chosen and explored with qualitative methods. The first case consisted of a project to create at an Action Plan, a policy suggestion regarding strategies to reduce emissions from agriculture. The second case focused on the Swedish Board of Agriculture’s co-owned agricultural extension service, Greppa Näringen. More specifically, the case consisted of the provision of climate advice to farmers. The analyses of the initiatives focused on assessing, discussing and explaining the types of change advanced within them. The papers show how and why convergent rather than divergent change was pursued, describing different mechanisms generating this inertia.

There is a gap in the institutional work-literature regarding the role of the so-called regulative pillar when it comes to institutional maintenance. Understanding processes and outcomes related to this pillar are important, as they often have decisive impacts on the institutional dynamics within fields. To fill this gap, this paper draws on a case study of Swedish agri-food policy addressing climate change. By focusing on problematizations as triggers, the paper shows that policies supporting controversial practices are maintained as a redefined script that restores cognitive order is created. These case findings are then used to suggest several proposition regarding the characteristics of maintenance within the regulative pillar.

Institutional entrepreneurship, as a concept, has recently gained popularity within business studies. Broadly speaking it denotes change activities that challenge prevailing institutions at various levels of analysis (Battilana, Boxenbaum and Leca, 2009). Given that business-as-usual is underpinned by strong institutions, e.g., markets, property rights, etc., institutional entrepreneurship could potentially be used to theorize changes in relation to those institutions, paving the way for sustainable business activities. Here I understand sustainable business activities as activities that respect eco-system boundaries (Rockstrom et al., 2009). Subsequently, the purpose of this paper is to discuss the concept institutional entrepreneurship and relate it to sustainable business activities.

In order to provide a base for discussing institutional entrepreneurship a review of the literature covering the concept was conducted. The review covered three top-tier management journals, i.e. Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal and Organization Studies. Articles from 1988 (when DiMaggio (1988) first introduced the concept) until 2012 were chosen and analyzed.

The results from the review indicate that institutional entrepreneurship is mainly used to encircle change at the level of the organizational field, e.g., industry, and as such do not describe changes in those institutions that embed fields. However, the concept as such does not designate this usage, rather this is how it has been applied in business studies. Given that institutions are defined in relation to the particular levels of analysis in focus, the concept could be used to describe changes more fundamental than those taking place within industries or communities of organizations. Hence, for those interested in what drives or hinders change, I suggest that there could be much to learn from the institutional entrepreneurship literature.

The role of materiality in organization theory has been somewhat neglected (Dale, 2005; Jarzabkowski et al., 2013), which seems problematic when one seeks to understand how innovations impact on prevailing practice. New material properties, that enable new actions, seem to be just what innovations bring to prevailing practice. Our purpose in this paper is to, develop an understanding of materiality that allows material properties to influence the interpretations that are made albeit in duality with the constitutive forces of the institutional context. We illustrate our conceptual framework via a case study of how a new global health-care innovation, the Non-Invasive Parental Test (NIPT), has impacted on an institutionalized health-care practice, namely Prenatal Testing (PNT), in Sweden. Further, while affordances stem from relations to practice, we show that how these affordances come to affect institutionalization, the actions taken within the field to adopt or challenge an innovation, not so much because of the institutional meaning that underpins that practice but rather how that meaning is employed.

Sustainability innovation research suggests that when the managers of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) perceive sustainability as strategic, they undertake sustainable innovation. Educational interventions are, in turn, suggested to foster such views among these managers. But in the interaction between educators and managers, power matters for how knowledge is conveyed and educational interventions are understudied, especially when they are university-led. This article examines how actors' power affects the translation of knowledge between educators and SME managers. A conceptual framework combining translation and power-dependency theory is introduced and applied to the case study of a University-led competence development program offered to construction company managers in Sweden. The analysis reveals how imbalanced dependencies and power within interactions accumulated over time and came to interfere with the program's learning objectives. The study contributes practically by suggesting how mutual goals, time management, and relationship building can create a better context for educator-SME interactions and SME sustainability. The scientific contribution lies in introducing a new perspective on educational interventions for SMEs and providing a conceptual framework for future studies thereof. 

This conceptual article focuses on the environmental dimensions of sustainable developmentwhich are essential for satisfying current and future human needs. It assesses ecologicaleconomics (EE) as an alternative base for a “strong” version of sustainable entrepreneurship(SE). EE recognizes the biophysical base of economic activity, critical natural capital (nonsubstitutability)and limits to market valuation and exchange. Contemporary entrepreneurialdefinitions, however, as well as recent SE framings, pre-suppose that functioning marketswill achieve sustainable development. As discussed in this paper, natural processes are nonlinearand critical, and as thresholds are impossible to anticipate, markets are unreliable andprincipally at odds with the objectives of sustainable development. Our proposed alternativeconstitutes a way forward.

Climate mitigation is both a pressing and complex task, and one that frequently requires both participation to involve stakeholders and capacity building to enable them to change their practices. This paper considers whether the provision of climate advice to affected parties could be an effective policy activity in both respects. The article investigates the feasibility and potential influence of providing climate advice by examining the role that such advice has played in the discursive activities of agriculture extension consultants in Sweden. This case demonstrates that, rather than promoting substantial change in practices, the climate issue is used to support conventional efficiency-increasing measures and to change the descriptions of prevailing agricultural activities. We find that the embedding of climate related discourse within agricultural extension and the lack of clear climate mitigation goals for the agricultural sector reduced and adapted the climate issue to enable it to be easily accommodated in the narratives prevailing among farmers, which are well aligned with conventional economic, rather than climate, policy goals. This lock-in could be addressed by establishing clear and radical reduction targets and through the broader involvement of a wider range of stakeholders.

Reducing GHG emissions is an urgent challenge for mankind. However, as aggregate emissions continue to rise, necessary changes in industrial practices are lagging behind. The article addresses this discrepancy by exploring how the issue of GHG reduction is channeled from policy to industry, in oneof the more GHG intensive sectors, agriculture. We adopt the translation perspective to outline how the climate issue travels between contexts. Our study explores the activities involved as advisors, functioning as translating agents within Swedish agri-policy, inform producers about the issue of GHG reduction. The study sheds new light on the effectiveness of mitigation policy in promoting practicechange and illustrates how translation is an analytical framework suitable for studying this within different industries.

Contemporary agricultural practices account for a significant share of greenhouse gas emissions. Inspired by the emergent literature on institutional entrepreneurship, we seek to explore mechanisms that affect an actor’s propensity to act in ways that imply suggesting and promoting emission-reducing practice changes. As influences originating outside the organizational field are assumed to constitute such mechanisms, the paper explores their role through a case study of a project run by a public agency. Unlike extant theory, results show that the agency’s propensity to act is not necessarily enhanced by extra-field influences but that such influences also limit the scope for suggesting change that challenges existing industrial practices.

Means–ends decoupling, the institutionally induced implementation of ineffective practices, has become increasingly common. Extant theory suggests that means–ends decoupling has real consequences, which makes it unstable and difficult for organizations to sustain. Yet little is known of how, and with what outcomes, firms organize such means–ends decoupling. We examine organizing via multiple qualitative and longitudinal case studies of how Swedish fast fashion retailers implement and manage the collection of used garments. We find that firms combine two organizational arrangements: structural and temporal core–compartment separations, which mitigate consequences of means–ends decoupling by obscuring and justifying efficiency gaps. Thereby we provide a theoretical explanation for how means–ends decoupling can persist over time.

Justification of the paper

Reducing GHG emissions is a fundamental part of the transition to a sustainable society. However, necessary changes in industrial practices are lagging behind as emissions, in the aggregate, continue to rise (World Bank 2012; UNEP, 2012). This paper addresses the discrepancy between needed and actual changes in industrial practices by exploring how the issue of GHG reduction is channelled through policy to industrial producers in a sector of relative importance: Swedish agriculture. We depart from the translation model which sets out to explain how entities, e.g., issues, ideas, practices and problematizations travel within and between contexts (Sahlin & Wedlin, 2008). Our application of the translation  model sheds new light on the attempt to understand inertia in climate change-related practice change and should provide researchers and decision makers, particularly within policy, with new information.    

Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to explore how translation of the issue of GHG reduction affects the meaning of industrial practice. Following Zilber (2002; 2006; cf. Hardy and Maguire, 2009) we consider the shared meanings that underpin practice to be of pivotal importance to explain practice change. Thus we suggest that how or if this issue will spur practice change depends on how translation affects such meanings.

Theoretical framework

The translation model Somewhat simplified, translation assumes that a) entities change as they travel within and between contexts, b) the activities of translating agents are central for this and c) the process never starts nor stops but over time results in taken-for-granted simplifications (Jensen, Sandstrom, & Helin, 2009). Thus it is not mainly the advantages of a particular entity or the power and prestige of some original source (e.g. IPCC) that explain spread but rather the efforts of a multitude of translating agents that: “may act in many different ways, letting the token drop, or modifying it, or deflecting it, or betraying it, or adding to it, or appropriating it” (Latour, 1986: 267).

In applying this model to (agricultural) practice and practice change, we follow Hardy & Maguire (2009; cf. Zilber, 2002; 2006) who stresses the pivotal role of the shared meanings that underpin practice. Seen from this perspective, an emerging issue such as reduction of GHG emissions, could introduce radical change in practices through accompanying problematizations, e.g., claims, arguments, stories, that challenge the legitimacy of the practices prevailing in an industry (Maguire & Hardy, 2009).

Results and conclusions

Our results stem from two case studies exploring how the issue of GHG reduction is channeled through Swedish agro-policy. Our cases show how translation results in new meanings for GHG reduction as well as current agro-policy and practice. However, changes occur mainly at the level of discourse rather than at the level of practice. The argument of “biological complexities”, rendering agricultural emissions special and more difficult to reduce, takes on a status as a taken-for-granted truth that precludes substantial emission cuts and radical practice changes. Framing GHG reduction as concerning efficiency in agricultural practices reconciles possible opposing interests and protects the legitimacy of existing practice. Subsequently, arguments for radical practice changes are weakened.  

Implications for Just Transitions

The results shed light on some of the reasoning that explains inertia in transitions to a sustainable production in advanced nations. It is troublesome if advanced nations, e.g., Sweden, by reducing a complex issue to a matter of efficiency of production, refrain from assuming responsibility and making required radical changes. Further, results illustrate the limitations of the eco-modernist principles that currently guide policy making, especially in addressing global issues e.g., climate change. Such principles effectively preclude discussions of equity and fairness in terms of how much emission a sector and its producers have capacity for. 

Drawing on the concept of decoupling, from institutional theory in organizational studies, this paperexplains how organizations mitigate demands for circularity. Seven Swedish apparel companies thathave started collecting used clothes as a form of engagement with circular business models serve as casestudies. The paper shows how outsourcing and internal separation allow these companies to buffer theirbusiness model and core way of creating value from emerging demands. It also shows how companiespro-actively work at influencing institutional demands for circularity by making these demandscompatible with their own interests. The concept of decoupling thereby provides key insights into thedevelopment and implementation, or absence thereof, of circular business models.

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.

Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is an urgent challenge for mankind. However, as aggregate emissions continue to rise, necessary changes in industrial practices are lagging behind. The article addresses this discrepancy by exploring how the issue of GHG reduction is channeled from policy to industry, in one of the more GHG intensive sectors, agriculture. We adopt the translation perspective to analyze and discuss how the climate issue travels between contexts. Our study explores the activities involved as advisors, functioning as translating agents within Swedish agri-policy, inform producers about the issue of GHG reduction. The study sheds new light on the effectiveness of mitigation policy in promoting practice change and illustrates how translation is an analytical framework suitable for studying this within different industries.

Since sustainable consumption (SC) research focuses primarily on consumer purchasing behaviors, there is a gap regarding how firms attempt to shape sustainable consumption in practice. Utilizing nine case studies, this gap is addressed by exploring the use of value propositions entailing product–service systems among Swedish fashion firms. The value propositions in use by the firms suggest that sustainable consumption may be extending beyond purchase to also include aspects of use and disposal, suggesting new reciprocal responsibilities for firms and consumers. Similarities are found in what elements firms incorporate in their value propositions (i.e. more sustainable textiles, repair and take-back systems), but differences in how these are elaborated, testifying to the inter-organizational dynamics that embed practices. The paper ends with the specific caution that take-back systems may send illusionary signals regarding recycling that legitimize increased consumption and further accelerate material throughput, which would be at odds with notions of strong sustainable consumption.

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.