The growth paradox, sustainable development, and business strategy

Abstract

Economic growth is a two‐edged sword. Expanding economies and industries create wealth and employment, but global economic expansion is having unprecedented deleterious impacts on vital planetary systems. Despite this, the core strategic goal of all economies and many businesses continues to be the pursuit of ongoing economic growth. To resolve this paradox, a reconceptualization of firm‐level growth is presented. I describe and discuss the organizational characteristics of the growth paradox and follow this with a metatheoretical review of economic, organizational, and ecological perspectives on growth. From this review, a typology of firm‐level strategy is developed that radically reconceptualizes business growth as developmental activity primarily concerned with social–ecological flourishing. The features of this typology and its implications for business strategy are discussed according to three principles that emerged from the analysis: multidexterity, resilience thinking for design, and inclusive balance (embeddedness). Together, these strategy principles form the prerequisite management competencies needed for the development, implementation, and evaluation of sustainable business strategies. Transformative firm‐level responses to the growth paradox are needed if sustaining forms of organizational growth are to be achieved and this paper presents a novel integrative framework for informing those strategies.

The resilience of green firms in the twirl of COVID‐19: Evidence from S&P500 Carbon Efficiency Index with a Fourier approach

“…Understanding the response of low‐carbon company shares to health‐related economic and financial shocks/crises can be a future guide, especially in designing corporate sustainable development policies. It can also contribute to developing innovative strategies resulting from new understandings of the relationship between business, society and nature (Edwards, 2021). Our study fulfils its main goal while implementing four other novelties.…”

Integrating decision support tools into businesses for sustainable development: A paradoxical approach to address the food waste challenge

“…It shows the interconnections between various sustainability objectives (Hahn et al, 2015). Sustainable development and related tensions necessitate businesses to reconsider their strategies (Edwards, 2021). For instance, environmental value-creation through business model design in digital platforms to manage environmental tensions (Reuter, 2021).…”

Managing tensions in sustainable development in Chinese and New Zealand business partnerships: Integrative approaches

“…First, Smith (2014) defined strategic tensions ‘as contradictory, yet interrelated, demands embedded in an organization's goals’ (p. 1592). According to Edwards (2021), most firms have experienced strategic tensions within their organisations, because decision‐makers often have contradictory strategies in addressing environmental, social and economic performance. Hahn et al (2018) further asserted that these kinds of tensions touch the very heart of sustainability, because they involve a diverse set of potentially competing sustainability issues, such as climate change, biodiversity conservation, poverty alleviation, public health and education.…”

“…In relation to strategies for managing the tensions, while a paradoxical approach has only recently emerged, research on it needs further investigation and it is still nascent (Ozanne et al, 2016;Somlai, 2022;Van der Byl & Slawinski, 2016), and there is still little research on the specific forms of paradoxical responses to tensions in sustainability (Edwards, 2021;Hahn et al, 2018;Hellemans et al, 2021). Moreover, the recent studies which examine the paradoxical approach in sustainability tension management mainly focused on conceptual development, while empirical work is still in its infancy (Brix-Asala et al, 2021;Hahn et al, 2015Hahn et al, , 2016, particularly lacking investigation in specific contexts (Fontana et al, 2021;Smith & Tracey, 2016).…”