The formation of sustainability strategies

The formation of sustainability strategies is hardly addressed in sustainability research. Instead, it is often implicitly assumed that sustainability strategies are planned and implemented topdown. In contrast, the formation of strategies is a frequent topic of discussion in strategy research where a consensus has been established that strategy making resides on a continuum between planned and emergent.This dissertation sets out to narrow this gap by investigating the formation of sustainability strategies from a theoretical and an empirical angle. The theoretical angle consists of a conceptual framework to help explain when planned and when emergent sustainability strategy making is more likely. The empirical angle comes into play with the Action Research study that is conducted in cooperation with a corporate innovation project.The theoretical and empirical angle of this dissertation together shed light on the formation of sustainability strategies, suggesting that the nature of the sustainability problem addressed as well as sustainability champions play a major role for the kind of strategy making to be expected.