How Do Firms Strategically Navigate Competing Sustainability Demands Under Conditions of Systemic Uncertainty?

Sammanfattning

Sustainability-oriented firms increasingly operate under conditions of systemic uncertainty, where ecological, commercial, and legitimacy-related pressures converge simultaneously and resist singular strategic resolution. Despite growing scholarly interest in sustainability-oriented Business Model Innovation (BMI), existing research has devoted limited attention to how firms navigate competing sustainability demands under such conditions and how consumer-level dynamics shape responses to sustainability-oriented BMI. This study addresses this gap through a convergent mixed methods design centred on Oatly AB, a Swedish plant-based food company operating in the German and Swedish markets. Six semi-structured expert interviews and a consumer survey (n = 168) examine firm-level sustainability tensions and demand-side purchasing dynamics. Both strands were integrated through a joint display analysis to generate metainferential conclusions. The findings indicate that sustainability tensions are structurally persistent and increasingly shaped by institutional adversity, referring to a condition in which regulatory complexity expands while political commitment to sustainability transition simultaneously weakens. At the firm level, sustainability-oriented BMI operates through strategic layering, governance-level institutionalisation, and enabling conditions supporting long-term adaptation. At the consumer level, sustainable PB emerges as conditional upon functional product performance rather than environmental concern. Regression analysis establishes taste as the primary predictor of purchase frequency, followed by brand trust, while sustainability attitudes exhibit secondary influence. Convenience and health did not predict outcomes. The study contributes to the BMI, paradox theory, and consumer behaviour literatures by identifying strategic layering, governance-level BMI, legitimacy asymmetry, institutional adversity, and communicative uncertainty as theoretical extensions. Collectively, the findings position invisible sustainability, defined as the structural embedding of sustainability commitments without continuous rhetorical foregrounding, as the strategic direction most consistent with conditions of systemic uncertainty and sustainability normalisation. Rather than resolving sustainability tensions, firms appear to navigate them by embedding sustainability into governance structures and functionally superior products that generate consumer trust, sustaining both commercial viability and long-term sustainability commitment.