Sustainable business model innovation, dynamic capabilities, and organizational design: Insights from Norwegian aquaculture

Abstract

Firms must increasingly grapple with complex sustainability challenges. Business model innovation is needed to achieve radical sustainability improvements. Recent research highlights the interrelatedness between business model innovation, dynamic capabilities, and organizational design, calling for empirical work to better illuminate these relationships. These connections are relevant in sustainability contexts, where organizational barriers and drivers have been shown to either facilitate or hinder the development of dynamic capabilities for sustainable business model innovation (SBMI). This paper presents a case study of an emergent low‐carbon offshore aquaculture value chain in Norway to illuminate the importance and roles of these organizational factors. Based on our analysis, we identify those barriers and drivers present in the Norwegian salmon aquaculture industry; add to the body of theory around organizational design, dynamic capabilities, and SBMI; and offer insights for practitioners in the aquaculture sector aiming to develop dynamic capabilities for SBMI.