1st Edition
Strategic Management and Sustainability Transitions Theory and Practice
The subject of sustainability transitions has, in the past decade or so, become an established research field for academics, policy makers and practitioners alike. Conceptual and theoretical developments in the filed have gradually advanced from the perspectives of socio-technical systems and business models. Scholars contend that it is the interactions of the networks of actors, technologies, and institutions that drive transition processes toward sustainability. In this volume we further advance this line of inquiry with a special reference to strategic management of sustainability transitions, in both theory and practice. In theoretical development, we have selected three chapters to encompass the themes of (1) the interactions between ecological systems and human systems; (2) a critique on the continuous expansion of large multinational companies and their strategic control of key resource inputs through the lenses of circular economy and natural resource-based view; and (3) a multi-stakeholder ecosystems framework for the management of sustainability transitions with structural alignment of focal value propositions. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are critically addressed and empirically examined. It will become an essential reader and a reference book for researchers and postgraduate students interested in strategic management, international business, innovation studies, consumer behavior, and public administration.
Introduction
Michael W. Zhang
Part I. Theoretical development
1. Ecosystems and human systems: A framework for exploring the linkages
Robert Costanza, Bobbi S. Low, Elinor Ostrom and James Wilson
2. Business model innovation for the circular economy: market, multi-stakeholder or circular vertical integration?
Peter Wells
3. Multi-stakeholder ecosystems for sustainability transitions
Michael W. Zhang
Part II. Management practice
4. Managing the coal exit in a mining region – Strategic landscape design and niche management for a sustainable socio-technical regime in Lusatia
Matthias Tomenendal, Nizar Abdelkafi, Hans Rüdiger Lange and Herwig Winkler
5. Creating a better food system: Reinventing the way we grow food in cities
Yves Plourde
6. Sustainability transitions through electric vehicles: The relevance of network externalities
Moritz Berg and Dirk Holtbrügge
7. Sustainability transition dynamics of SMEs in a volatile emerging economy: A qualitative exploration
Faisal Shahzad and Ahmad Arslan
8. Stakeholders of sustainability transition: Interventions in energy and Bangladesh RMG industry
Sadril Shajahan, Sabrina Nourin, Md. Faizul Islam and Md. Abdullah Al Kaium
Conclusion
Michael W. Zhang
Biography
Michael W. Zhang is Reader (Associate Professor) in International Strategy at the Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, UK.