Business Cases for Sustainability and the Role of Business Model Innovation: Developing a Conceptual Framework

A considerable body of literature deals with the creation of economic value while increasing corporate environmental and social performance. Some publications even focus on the business case for sustainability which is targeted towards increasing corporate economic value through environmental or social measures. The existence of a business case for sustainability is, however, mostly considered to be an ad hoc measure, an add-on to core business, or simply a coincidence. As a contrast to these views this paper argues that to support a systematic, ongoing creation of business cases for sustainability may require business model innovation. A framework for business model innovation is proposed as a means to strategically create business cases on a regular basis as an inherent, deeply integrated element of business activities

[1]  R E Miles,et al.  Organizational strategy, structure, and process. , 1978, Academy of management review. Academy of Management.

[2]  Stefan Schaltegger,et al.  The link between 'green' and economic success: environmental management as the crucial trigger between environmental and economic performance. , 2002, Journal of environmental management.

[3]  David Stokes,et al.  Small businesses and the environment: turning over a new leaf? , 2009 .

[4]  Eva Collins,et al.  Sustainability practices: trends in New Zealand businesses , 2010 .

[5]  Y. Doz,et al.  Embedding Strategic Agility A Leadership Agenda for Accelerating Business Model Renewal , 2010 .

[6]  Bertrand Moingeon,et al.  Building Social Business Models: Lessons from the Grameen Experience , 2010 .

[7]  J. Logsdon,et al.  How corporate social responsibility pays off , 1996 .

[8]  F. Reinhardt.  Bringing the environment down to earth. , 1999, Harvard business review.

[9]  H. Chesbrough.  Business model innovation: it's not just about technology anymore , 2007 .

[10]  Forest L. Reinhardt,et al.  Down to Earth: Applying Business Principles to Environmental Management , 2000 .

[11]  A. Xepapadeas,et al.  Environmental Policy and Competitiveness: The Porter Hypothesis and the Composition of Capital , 1999 .

[12]  Thomas Dyllick,et al.  Beyond the business case for corporate sustainability , 2002 .

[13]  Perry Sadorsky,et al.  The Relationship Between Environmental Commitment and Managerial Perceptions of Stakeholder Importance , 1999 .

[14]  M. V. Marrewijk.  Concepts and definitions of CSR and corporate sustainability: Between agency and communion , 2013 .

[15]  Clegg,et al.  Business Models: A Strategic Management Approach , 2003 .

[16]  Friedrich Grosse-Dunker,et al.  Sustainability Innovation Cube - A Framework to Evaluate Sustainability-Oriented Innovations , 2009 .

[17]  William C. Frederick,et al.  From CSR1 to CSR2 , 1994 .

[18]  Henk Folmer,et al.  The International Yearbook of Environmental and Resource Economics 1998/1999: A Survey of Current Issues , 1999 .

[19]  John A. Parnell,et al.  Sustainable strategic management: construct, parameters, research directions , 2008 .

[20]  Alnoor Bhimani,et al.  From conformance to performance: The corporate responsibilities continuum ☆ , 2005 .

[21]  Frank Birkin,et al.  A new business model for sustainable development: an exploratory study using the theory of constraints in Nordic organizations , 2009 .

[22]  Xavier Lecocq,et al.  Business Model Evolution: In Search of Dynamic Consistency , 2010 .

[23]  Stuart L. Hart,et al.  DOES IT PAY TO BE GREEN? AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMISSION REDUCTION AND FIRM PERFORMANCE , 1996 .

[24]  A. Berke,et al.  Business Model Evolution , 2012 .

[25]  Wayne F. Cascio,et al.  What is Strategy , 2012 .

[26]  S. Eden.  Using sustainable development: The business case , 1994 .

[27]  Jan Bebbington,et al.  Sustainability Accounting and Accountability , 2007 .

[28]  Mark W. Johnson,et al.  Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal , 2010 .

[29]  J. Griffin.  Corporate Social Performance: Research Directions for the 21st Century , 2000 .

[30]  Charles O. Holliday,et al.  Walking the Talk: The Business Case for Sustainable Development , 2002 .

[31]  Ulrich Steger,et al.  The Business Case for Corporate Sustainability:: Literature Review and Research Options , 2005 .

[32]  S. Schaltegger.  Sustainability as a driver for corporate economic success , 2011 .

[33]  J. G. Stead,et al.  Sustainable strategic management: an evolutionary perspective , 2008 .

[34]  Keith Davis,et al.  Business and society: environment and responsibility , 1975 .

[35]  Lise Backer,et al.  When oil and wind turbine companies make green sense together , 2009 .

[36]  Henry Mintzberg,et al.  THE CASE FOR CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY , 1983 .

[37]  Scott Sibary,et al.  Relations among corporate social responsibility, financial soundness, and investment value in 22 manufacturing industry groups , 1999 .

[38]  Ina Ehnert,et al.  Sustainable Human Resource Management: A conceptual and exploratory analysis from a paradox perspective , 2009 .

[39]  N. Phillips,et al.  Beyond Philanthropy: Community Enterprise as a Basis for Corporate Citizenship , 2005 .

[40]  R. Simpson,et al.  Taxing Variable Cost: Environmental Regulation as Industrial Policy , 1996 .

[41]  Umberto Bertelè,et al.  Exploiting green strategies for competitive advantage , 1994 .

[42]  M. Epstein.  Measuring Corporate Environmental Performance: Best Practices for Costing and Managing an Effective Environmental Strategy , 1995 .

[43]  Daniel H. Kim.  The Link between individual and organizational learning , 1997 .

[44]  Michael E. Porter,et al.  Green and Competitive : Ending the Stalemate , 1996 .

[45]  J. D. Margolis,et al.  Misery Loves Companies: Rethinking Social Initiatives by Business , 2003 .

[46]  S. Schaltegger,et al.  Sustainable entrepreneurship and sustainability innovation: categories and interactions , 2011 .

[47]  J. Hamilton.  Pollution as News: Media and Stock Market Reactions to the Toxics Release Inventory Data , 1995 .

[48]  Carol Bruckner Coles,et al.  Business model innovation breakthrough moves , 2004 .

[49]  J. Magretta.  Why business models matter. , 2002, Harvard business review.

[50]  Mark W. Johnson,et al.  How to Jump-Start the Clean Economy , 2009 .

[51]  Nigel Roome,et al.  Developing environmental management strategies , 1992 .

[52]  C. Cocklin,et al.  Conceptualizing a “Sustainability Business Model” , 2008 .

[53]  Carol Bruckner Coles,et al.  The ultimate competitive advantage of continuing business model innovation , 2003 .

[54]  A. Carroll.  The pyramid of corporate social responsibility: Toward the moral management of organizational stakeholders , 1991 .

[55]  M. Russo,et al.  A Resource-Based Perspective On Corporate Environmental Performance And Profitability , 1997 .

[56]  Stefan Schaltegger,et al.  Introduction: How Does Sustainability Performance Relate to Business Competitiveness? , 2003 .

[57]  Alexander Osterwalder,et al.  The business model ontology a proposition in a design science approach , 2004 .

[58]  Mario Schmidt,et al.  Material Flow Cost Accounting , 2012 .

[59]  Marcus Wagner,et al.  Integration of Environmental Management with Other Managerial Functions of the Firm: Empirical Effects on Drivers of Economic Performance , 2007 .

[60]  Petra Christmann.  Effects of “Best Practices” of Environmental Management on Cost Advantage: The Role of Complementary Assets , 2000 .

[61]  S. Voelpel ‡,et al.  The wheel of business model reinvention: how to reshape your business model to leapfrog competitors , 2004 .

[62]  Kathrin M. Möslein,et al.  A Community-Based Toolkit for Designing Ride-Sharing Services: The Case of a Virtual Network of Ride Access Points in Germany , 2010 .

[63]  M. Porter,et al.  Industrial Ecology and Competitiveness , 1998 .

[64]  R. Amit,et al.  Business Model Innovation: Creating Value in Times of Change , 2010 .

[65]  D. Pujari.  Eco-innovation and new product development: understanding the influences on market performance , 2006 .

[66]  R. Amit,et al.  The Business Model: Recent Developments and Future Research , 2011 .

[67]  H. Chesbrough.  Business Model Innovation: Opportunities and Barriers , 2010 .

[68]  Ulrich Steger,et al.  The business of sustainability : building industry cases for corporate sustainability , 2004 .

[69]  Wendy K. Smith,et al.  Complex Business Models: Managing Strategic Paradoxes Simultaneously , 2010 .

[70]  Andrea L. Larson,et al.  Sustainability, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship , 2011 .

[71]  Thomas A. Hemphill.  Legislating corporate social responsibility , 1997 .

[72]  George S. Yip.  Using Strategy to Change Your Business Model , 2004 .

[73]  C. MacDonald,et al.  Getting to the Bottom of “Triple Bottom Line” , 2004, Business Ethics Quarterly.

[74]  Carol Bruckner Coles,et al.  Establishing a continuing business model innovation process , 2004 .

[75]  S. Schaltegger,et al.  The Effect of Corporate Environmental Strategy Choice and Environmental Performance on Competitiveness and Economic Performance:: An Empirical Study of EU Manufacturing , 2004 .

[76]  C. Montalvo Corral.  General wisdom concerning the factors affecting the adoption of cleaner technologies: a survey 1990-2007 , 2008 .

[77]  Stefan Schaltegger,et al.  Managing the Business Case for Sustainability : The Integration of Social, Environmental and Economic Performance , 2006 .

[78]  C. Montalvo.  General wisdom concerning the factors affecting the adoption of cleaner technologies: a survey 1990–2007 , 2008 .

[79]  H. Chesbrough,et al.  The Role of the Business Model in Capturing Value from Innovation: Evidence from Xerox Corporation's Technology Spin-Off Companies , 2002 .

[80]  Wallace E. Oates,et al.  Tightening Environmental Standards: The Benefit-Cost or the No-Cost Paradigm? , 1995 .

[81]  Srinivasan Keshav,et al.  It's not easy being green , 2012, CCRV.

[82]  C. Baden‐Fuller,et al.  Business models as models , 2010 .

[83]  John Elkington,et al.  Partnerships from cannibals with forks: The triple bottom line of 21st‐century business , 1998 .

[84]  Leena Lankoski.  Environmental and Economic Performance: The Basic Links , 2006 .

[85]  S. Mäkinen,et al.  Assessing Business Model Concepts with Taxonomical Research Criteria - A Preliminary Study , 2007 .

[86]  Robert Blackburn,et al.  The business case for sustainability? An examination of small firms in the UK's construction and restaurant sectors , 2007 .

[87]  G. Hamel.  Leading the Revolution , 2000 .

[88]  Oksana Mont,et al.  An analysis of a product service system in Bolivia: coffee in Yungas , 2008 .

[89]  D. Teece.  Business Models, Business Strategy and Innovation , 2010 .

[90]  Clayton M. Christensen,et al.  Reinventing Your Business Model , 2008 .

[91]  Monika I. Winn,et al.  Market imperfections, opportunity and sustainable entrepreneurship , 2007 .

[92]  A. Verbeke,et al.  Proactive environmental strategies: a stakeholder management perspective , 2003 .

[93]  Philip L. Cochran,et al.  The Evolution of the Corporate Social Performance Model , 1985 .

[94]  J. Mahon,et al.  The Corporate Social Performance and Corporate Financial Performance Debate , 1997 .

[95]  Lars Schweizer,et al.  Concept and Evolution of Business Models , 2005 .

[96]  M. Pava,et al.  The association between corporate social-responsibility and financial performance: The paradox of social cost , 1996 .

[97]  Frank Birkin,et al.  New sustainable business models in China , 2009 .

[98]  Christopher Perceval.  Towards a Process View of the Business Case for Sustainable Development , 2003 .

[99]  J. Ruiz Moreno.  [Organizational learning]. , 2001, Revista de enfermeria.

[100]  M. Porter,et al.  Toward a New Conception of the Environment-Competitiveness Relationship , 1995 .

[101]  D. Melé,et al.  Corporate Social Responsibility Theories: Mapping the Territory , 2004 .

[102]  Roger Martin,et al.  The virtue matrix. Calculating the return on corporate responsibility. , 2002, Harvard business review.

[103]  Ramon Casadesus-Masanell,et al.  From Strategy to Business Models and onto Tactics , 2010 .

[104]  J. Aragón-Correa,et al.  Proactive Corporate Environmental Strategies: Myths and Misunderstandings , 2007 .

[105]  Pieter Ballon,et al.  Business Modelling Revisited: The Configuration of Control and Value , 2007 .

[106]  C. K. Prahalad,et al.  THE DOMINANT LOGIC: RETROSPECTIVE AND EXTENSION , 1995 .

[107]  C. Montalvo Corral,et al.  Cleaner technology diffusion: case studies, modeling and policy. Editorial , 2008 .