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Tabea Bereuther
Title
Dr.
Last Name
Bereuther
First name
Tabea
Email
tabea.bereuther@unisg.ch
Phone
+41 71 224 2719
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1 - 6 of 6
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PublicationTruly Sustainable Strategies - Defining business strategies that positively contribute to relevant sustainability challenges in the food sector( 2018-06-03)This research aims to concretize the concept of truly sustainable strategies. Looking at literature and practice of sustainability strategies, it becomes apparent that the definitions and interpretations of the concept highly differ in their underlying understanding of business sustainability (BST). Due to the dominance of financial success in value creation, businesses fail to address societal needs which leads to a disconnect between business activities and the state of the planet. Dyllick and Muff (2016) develop a typology, which distinguishes different levels of BST in order to explore the reason for the disconnect. Accordingly, true business sustainability is characterized by a shift to an outside-in perspective, so that relevant societal challenges are taken as a starting point for strategy development. However, it has to be further specified how such an outside-in perspective can be operationalized in a specific sector and how it impacts the business strategy development process, e.g. how a business can identify relevant challenges and how a strategic fit between societal relevance and core competencies can actually be created. Further, elements that constitute truly sustainable strategies have not been defined, yet. Therefore, this conceptual research aims to specify the outside-in perspective by clarifying what strategic approaches look like that enable companies to make significant contributions to relevant sustainability challenges in the food sector. By integrating insights from a systematic literature analysis and explorative interviews, relevant sustainability challenges in the food sector will be defined. Further, truly sustainable strategies will be characterized by developing a clear set of criteria and facilitators for their development. The results will be integrated into a systematic and holistic framework of truly sustainability strategy. The final conceptualization will be done by integrating the empirical insights of the expert interviews with the insights of the literature analysis.Type: conference paper
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PublicationType: conference paper
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PublicationType: conference paper
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PublicationTranslating the Sustainable Development Goals into Societal Value Contributions of Businesses( 2017-06-21)
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PublicationTruly sustainable strategies : effective business strategies for sustainable development : illustrations from the food sectorHumanity is facing immense environmental and social challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, malnutrition, and social inequality. Companies play a key role in both causing and solving a variety of these problems. The concept of True Business Sustainability (TBST) by Dyllick and Muff (2016) is seen as a promising approach in enabling business to effectively address sustainability challenges as it focuses on business’s societal impact. However, research has yet to fully specify what “a fundamentally different strategic approach” proposed by Dyllick and Muff (2016, p. 170) looks like. In research and in practice, companies predominantly focus on the business case of sustainability, opting to pursue social and environmental strategies only when they also make financial sense. However, such an inside-out perspective exacerbates social and environmental distress. In contrast, the outside-in perspective proposed in TBST takes environmental and social challenges as a starting point for strategy design and focuses on how firms can solve them. This dissertation aims to refine what the outside-in perspective means for strategy design and development by elaborating what business strategies that effectively contribute to sustainable development look like—which are here called truly sustainable strategies (TSS). The dissertation explores three aspects of TSS: characteristics, types, and facilitators. First, the thesis develops a set of seven characteristics that define TSS. Second, it categorizes a company’s strategic actions into a portfolio of TSS types. Third, the thesis identifies four factors that facilitate the development of TSS. The dissertation’s findings contribute to a better understanding of strategic actions and facilitating processes of TBST. By including expert insights from the food sector, the findings provide guidance for managers on how business can effectively contribute to solving some of humanity’s most pressing challenges.Type: doctoral thesis
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