1st Edition

Strategic Management and Sustainability Transitions Theory and Practice

By Michael Zhang Copyright 2024
    280 Pages 15 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    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.