Business Strategies for Ecological Sustainability: towards A New Conceptualisation

Abstract

This paper builds theory at the intersection between the strategic management and ecological sustainability literatures. We extend the strategies for sustainability literature showing how IO based explanations of strategies, the resource-based and the dynamic capability-based views allow us to develop a better understanding of the strategies businesses may follow depending on their managers’ assumptions about ecological sustainability. In particular, we extend the dynamic capabilities literature by proposing the ‘natural’ dynamic capabilities framework. We suggest that the sensing, seizing and maintaining competitiveness framework should operate, not within the boundaries of the business ecosystem, but from within those of the global biophysical ecosystem. We also emphasise the importance for this framework of managerial core beliefs about ecological sustainability. This paper offers new insights into the dynamic capabilities literature and outlines opportunities for managers and academics to identify, ca...