Abstract
Business models direct a firm’s activity to move in coherence with the objectives of the business. Current literature suggests business models can act as vital forces to facilitate sustainability transitions and highlights the urgent research call to understand the role of business model innovations in stimulating sustainability transitions. This paper addresses this research need by investigating how firms create business model innovations for system-level transformation towards sustainability. Through a systematic literature review and deductive content analysis methodology, we identify and categorize different combinations of innovative activities in a firm’s business model. Furthermore, two cases are illustrated to demonstrate the proposed conceptual model. The proposed conceptualization bridges a significant gap in the theme of sustainability and business and presents a defensible and researchable problem for transitions literature. Specifically, we find (1) shared vision and strategic dialogues among firms in different sectors as essential to develop value propositions and leverage business opportunities for sustainability in the long run; (2) companies ensure sustainable value creation and value delivery in the medium term through creation of an interdependent network of the green supply chain and collaboration with stakeholders; (3) in the short term, companies adopt sustainable practices, controlling daily operations, conducting awareness campaigns and experimenting with collaborations to deliver values based on sustainable practices.
Highlights
Increasing environmental concerns and associated stricter regulations have directed the attention of researchers and practitioners alike towards the potential role of multiple actors in a system to accelerate sustainability transitions [1,2]
The proposed conceptualization bridges a significant gap in the theme of sustainability and business, and presents a defensible and researchable problem for transitions literature
After conceptualizing how a firm’s sustainable business model (SBM) activities can contribute to sustainability transition at the societal, industry, sector, and company level, we present two illustrative case examples to understand the application of this concept in practice
Summary
Increasing environmental concerns and associated stricter regulations have directed the attention of researchers and practitioners alike towards the potential role of multiple actors in a system to accelerate sustainability transitions [1,2]. The business model, as a tool to bring system-wide sustainability changes, has received increasing attention in the literature [3]. This study investigates the role of business models in sustainability transitions. We ask the research question: what is the role of sustainable business models’ activity system in sustainability transitions? Business models embrace a wide range of operational and strategic activities [4]. Sustainable business models take into account ecological, social and financial concerns embedded into business activities, as well as interactions with a wide range of stakeholders to implement activities [8,9].
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