Managing Corporate Sustainability with a Paradoxical Lens: Lessons from Strategic Agility

CITATION

Sarah Birrell Ivory. (2018). Managing Corporate Sustainability with a Paradoxical Lens: Lessons from Strategic Agility. Journal of Business Ethics, 148(2), 347–361.

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ABSTRACT
Corporate sustainability introduces multiple
tensions or paradoxes into organisations which defy traditional
approaches such as trading-off contrasting options.
We examine an alternative approach: to manage corporate
sustainability with a paradoxical lens where contradictory
elements are managed concurrently. Drawing on paradox
theory, we focus on two specific pathways: to the organisation-
wide acceptance of paradox and to paradoxical
resolution. Introducing the concept of strategic agility, we
argue that strategically agile organisations are better placed
to navigate these paradox pathways. Strategic agility
comprises three organisational meta-capabilities: strategic
sensitivity, collective commitment, and resource fluidity.
We propose that strategically agile organisations draw on
strategic sensitivity and collective commitment to achieve
organisation-wide acceptance of paradox, and collective
commitment and resource fluidity to achieve paradoxical
resolution. For each of these meta-capabilities, we identify
three organisational practices and processes specifically
related to corporate sustainability that organisations can
leverage in pursuit of strategic agility. We offer a conceptual
framework depicting the strategic agility metacapabilities,
and associated practices and processes, which
organisations draw on to successfully manage corporate
sustainability with a paradoxical lens.


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