Abstract

While there are a variety of definitions of sustainable, most of them share the idea of continuation for an indefinitely long period of time. Although the idea of sustainability has gained momentum in business circles in recent times, there is not commensurate sensibility or benefit to continuation of social or economic phenomena in general: the sensibility and desirability of continuation depends critically on what, exactly, is to be continued and by whom. In a corporate strategy context, this conditionality calls for explication of the various ideas the term sustainable corporate strategy subsumes so that one can comment on which of those ideas are compatible with continuation, which are not, and what the criteria might be. We address these issues in this paper and show that there are close links between ideas of sustainable corporate strategy at the firm level of analysis, and ideas of comparative advantage for the corporate form itself at the societal level of analysis. In our view, a discussion of sustainable corporate strategy ought to be carried out in context. For us, the context is the social organization within which the corporate form has emerged and has become such a significant player. So, to understand sustainable corporate strategy, one might start by asking, “What role are corporations playing and how is that working out for society?” We argue that the reality of sustainable corporate strategy, then, is that corporations need to make a compelling case that the form itself is compatible with the sustainability goals of society.