Bereuther, TabeaTabeaBereuther2023-04-132023-04-132021https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/110819Humanity is facing immense environmental and social challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, malnutrition, and social inequality. Companies play a key role in both causing and solving a variety of these problems. The concept of True Business Sustainability (TBST) by Dyllick and Muff (2016) is seen as a promising approach in enabling business to effectively address sustainability challenges as it focuses on business’s societal impact. However, research has yet to fully specify what “a fundamentally different strategic approach” proposed by Dyllick and Muff (2016, p. 170) looks like. In research and in practice, companies predominantly focus on the business case of sustainability, opting to pursue social and environmental strategies only when they also make financial sense. However, such an inside-out perspective exacerbates social and environmental distress. In contrast, the outside-in perspective proposed in TBST takes environmental and social challenges as a starting point for strategy design and focuses on how firms can solve them. This dissertation aims to refine what the outside-in perspective means for strategy design and development by elaborating what business strategies that effectively contribute to sustainable development look like—which are here called truly sustainable strategies (TSS). The dissertation explores three aspects of TSS: characteristics, types, and facilitators. First, the thesis develops a set of seven characteristics that define TSS. Second, it categorizes a company’s strategic actions into a portfolio of TSS types. Third, the thesis identifies four factors that facilitate the development of TSS. The dissertation’s findings contribute to a better understanding of strategic actions and facilitating processes of TBST. By including expert insights from the food sector, the findings provide guidance for managers on how business can effectively contribute to solving some of humanity’s most pressing challenges.enStrategisches ManagementNachhaltigkeitUmweltbezogenes ManagementLebensmittelindustrieLandwirtschaftBiologische LandwirtschaftSoziale GerechtigkeitKlimaschutzUmweltschutzKreislaufwirtschaftEDIS-5035doctoral thesis