Managerial Responses to Paradoxes in Corporate Sustainability: A Cognitive Framing Perspective

Organizational leaders constantly face paradoxical tensions in navigating their firms’ corporate sustainability. Applying a cognitive framing perspective, I examine how two ideal-type frames – a business case frame and a holistic frame – can have differential impacts on how managers respond to performing, belonging, learning, and organizing paradoxes in corporate sustainability. I propose that a business case frame will result in behaviors, such as engaging a narrow set of stakeholders and implementing incremental changes to their sustainability practices, which advance their firms’ interests but not that of the broader system. Conversely, a holistic frame will result in behaviors, such as integrating stakeholder demands and collaborating with peers, which can make meaningful contributions for their firms and society at large. Drawing on established theories in management, I explain the mechanisms through which these cognitive frames influence managerial decision-making. In doing so, I integrate paradox theory within the larger body of management literature, while describing its distinctive influence on the presence and role of tensions in corporate sustainability. By considering the malleability of cognitive frames, my argument offers a pathway forward to building an ecosystem that regards environmental and social concerns as an end in themselves, rather than a means for profit maximization.