Sustainable Business Models through the Lens of Organizational Design: A Systematic Literature Review

• Main Authors: Isaac Lemus-Aguilar, Gustavo Morales-Alonso, Andres Ramirez-Portilla, Antonio Hidalgo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-09-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: sustainability; business models; organizational design; star model; system boundaries
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/19/5379

The interest in sustainable business models has grown rapidly in recent years. Although some progress has been made in identifying this concept and making the practices more sustainable, little is known about the organizational design that is most appropriate for creating new business models or implementing changes in existing ones towards a sustainability approach. This paper presents a review of sustainable business models in terms of the key factors that influence firm design based on organization theory. We retrieved 394 Journal Citation Reports papers from the WoK and Scopus databases, identifying 19 papers that have addressed the interplay between both constructs. We used the Galbraith Star Model to analyze the selected papers. We discuss three key findings for the cross-fertilization of both literatures: (i) the extension of the design elements outside the firm boundaries at the inter-organizational and ecosystem levels; (ii) the emphasis on certain design elements (strategy, process, people, structure) rather than others (rewards); and (iii) the use of the organizational design construct as a tactic tool for strategy execution of the sustainable business model. We also present theoretical and practical implications for the use and further development of this framework, as well as future avenues of research.