Business model innovation has seen a recent surge in academic research and business practice. Changes to business models are recognized as a fundamental approach to realize innovations for sustainability. However, little is known about the successful adoption of sustainable business models (SBMs). The purpose of this paper is to develop a unified theoretical perspective for understanding business model innovations that lead to better organizational economic, environmental and social performance. The paper examines bodies of literature on business model innovation, sustainability innovation, networks theory, stakeholder theory and product–service systems. We develop five propositions that support the creation of SBMs in a unified perspective, which lays a foundation to support organizations in investigating and experimenting with alternative new business models. This article contributes to the emerging field of SBMs, which embed economic, environmental and social flows of value that are created, delivered and captured in a value network. It highlights gaps for addressing the challenges of business model innovation for sustainability and suggests avenues for future research. © 2017 The Authors. Business Strategy and the Environment published by ERP Environment and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

This investigation studies advanced practitioners of maintenance management and seeks to uncover the related impacts and contributions of best practice maintenance toward sustainable manufacturing operations. This exploratory research conducted a novel empirical analysis focused on maintenance functions in nine manufacturing companies from diverse sectors. The analysis uncovered insights related to the economic, environmental, and social benefits of deeper involvement of maintenance function in plant operations and decision-making. We observed links of maintenance function with product competitiveness and with energy management activities that were unexpected. We confirmed benefits from keeping machinery in good working conditions and restoring promptly good working conditions when an issue happens. The depth of maintenance contribution on each area identified in this study will depend on the operational and business context of the manufacturing company; thus, companies need to reflect on these based on their specific processes, business needs and goals. Ultimately, this work can inspire managers in manufacturing companies to organise maintenance functions strategically toward fostering long-term competitive, responsible and sustainable performance.

This research aims to understand how sustainable business model innovation (SBMI) can learn from business model innovation. For this, first, we conducted a bibliometric analysis to evaluate the relationships between business model innovation and SBMI literature. After this, we performed a systematic literature review to create a comprehensive framework for managing SBMI. The bibliometric analysis showed that the SBMI stream grew quickly and significantly in recent years, evolving into a separated new research stream, which does not leverage recent business model innovation advancements. Through the performed analyses, we were able to discuss critical gaps in the SBMI literature and shed light on possible pathways to solve these gaps through lessons learned from business model innovation. We depicted five critical gaps for managing SBMI; (1) the need to understand the sustainable business model as a wicked problem, in which SBMI leads to “better than before” solutions calling for systematic SBMI, (2) the poor definition of distinctive dimensions of dynamic capabilities for SBMI, (3) the lack of studies exploring the role of open innovation for improving the SBMI process, (4) the lack of tools supporting SBMI implementation and (5) the need to explore game-changing, competitive advantages of SBMI. The findings of this study contribute to guiding future research on SBMI, which can be a basis for further efforts towards sustainable development.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to discuss how the mastery of resilience in operations and supply chains plays a significant role in the transition to a more sustainable future. Furthermore, it is supposed to propose avenues for future research on operational and supply chain resilience, interacting with the sustainability literature in our field.Design/methodology/approach: A conceptual review of resilience and sustainability themes within operations and supply chain management research is conducted. Reflections on the topic are informed by relevant literature published over the last decade.Findings: The major conceptual contributions are threefold: (1) This article elaborates on the understanding of operational resilience and supply chain resilience concepts and reviews their respective primary research streams. (2) It proposes resilience as the missing element in the pursuit of excellence in organizations that want to contribute to a more sustainable future. (3) The article offers a research framework that provides a future research agenda at the intersection of resilience and sustainability in operations and supply chain management research.Originality/value: The article highlights gaps in current research and illustrates further areas of research that need to be addressed to maximize the contribution of operations and supply chain management research in supporting practitioners to achieve a more sustainable future.