Organisation and Environment has just granted readers early view access to a couple of upcoming articles on the theme of “Business Models for Sustainability: Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Transformation”.
In the first article, Roome and Louche use two case studies to illustrate what they call a “transformation” to a BMfS (Business Model for Sustainability). They note that the new model is “more socially complex” than the one it replaced. The paper includes some good stuff about organisational change and provides some insight into how organisational approaches to sustainability evolve over time. My one problem with it is that it is assumed that the “new” model these organisations have ostensibly adopted is, first of all, “new” and secondly, “sustainable” or close to it. Issues of impression management and the part played by the business case in the new model are not, I feel, sufficiently addressed.
http://oae.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/07/14/1086026615595084?papetoc
I’m a slightly bigger fan of the other article, where Upward and Jones develop an ontology for a “strongly sustainable business model” (SSBM) and compare it to the conventional “profit-orientated business model”. To create their SSBM, the authors draw from some literature on systems thinking and also from some of the management literature (e.g. Bansal, 2011; Stubbs and Cocklin, 2008). The model itself is not the strongest part of the paper and perhaps suffers from the breadth of ideas the authors attempt to incorporate in it e.g. from stakeholder theory to Layard’s views on happiness. I would also like to have seen reference to some of the more critical ONE (Organisations and the Natural Environment) authors, such as Gladwin or Starik. But the paper offers lots to think about and it’s a worthy attempt at tackling a huge topic.
http://oae.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/07/14/1086026615592933?papetoc