Organizational capabilities towards corporate sustainability benefits: A systematic literature review and an integrative framework proposal

Abstract

This research relates the theme of corporate sustainability to organizational capabilities from business strategy. The literature brings initial indications on the contribution of strategic organizational capabilities to corporate sustainability. However, these attempts are still incipient and non-structured. Thus, in order to explore different organizational capabilities that companies can develop to obtain sustainability benefits, this paper aims to propose an integrative framework that relates strategic organizational capabilities for sustainability and expected corporate sustainability benefits. For this, a systematic literature review was conducted, based on a paper sample of 88 publications extracted from the ISI Web of Science database. The paper also develops a descriptive overview of the subject, presenting the main gaps and a research agenda. The results showed that corporate sustainability is strongly related to business strategy and the ability of companies to develop specific capabilities. Thus, the understanding from academics and managers on what strategic organizational capabilities (OCs) consists and how they can be developed or improved is fundamental to reaching corporate sustainability. The paper presents some contributions. First, the integrative framework developed from the literature review comprises seven categories of organizational capabilities for sustainability (OCSs) related to ten categories of corporate sustainability benefits (CSBs). Second, the framework can contribute as a support tool for managers, by providing an explicit guideline on which capabilities that can be developed and/or improved in the organization to achieve a certainly expected sustainability benefit. Third, it is possible to identify OCS and CSB categories that have already been related in the literature and those that need further research. Fourth, the overview of the literature of OCS by bibliometric and cluster analyses allowed a broad understanding of how academics have addressed these themes over the years. Finally, the research agenda developed from the literature review may broaden opportunities for further research on the subject.