A Systematic Literature Review on Organizational Design for Sustainable Business Models

Abstract

Companies have focused greatly on Sustainability and Business Models in last years. While this situation signals the relevance of both concepts to have more sustainable organizations, it does not mean that they are always seen interlinked for the design of such organizations. Departing from this idea and by considering recognized models on organizational design, a systematic literature review was conducted by retrieving 404 JCR papers from the WoK database. The results show that only 14 papers have addressed specifically the interplay between such concepts, which could also be related mainly to four of the five factors of organizational design: Strategy, People, Structure, and Process. The findings show that while Strategy is a core factor, People is also crucial, but Process and Structure could be merged into one factor. Moreover, since innovation as an element highly visible throughout the reviewed papers, a framework is proposed for the definition of sustainable business models formed by four factors: Strategy, Skills, Style, and Innovation. Theoretical and practical implications for the use and further development of this framework are presented, as well as future veins of research.