Unpacking sustainable business models in the Swedish agricultural sector – the challenges of technological, social and organisational innovation

• The  global  challenges  of  today  are  many,  and  one  of  the  most  concerning  aspects  relates  to food production for an increasing global population. The sustainability of doing ‘more of the same  thing’  is  being  increasingly  called  into  question.  Several  sustainable  business  model frameworks  have  been  presented  in  recent  years  to  address  these  challenges,  but  our knowledge is limited about the change processes of the agricultural sector. This paper aims to increase  our  understanding  of  how  sustainable  business  models  have  developed  in  the agricultural  sector  in  Sweden.  It  maps  eight  archetypes  of  sustainable  business  models, clustered  in  three  groups,  with  a  focus  on  the  technological,  social,  and  organisational innovation    components    at    agri-food    companies.    The    study    takes    a    quantitative, methodological approach, conducting a telephone survey with owners and managers of 1143 agri-food  companies  in  Sweden,  and  using  analysis  of  variance  (ANOVA)  for  the  analysis. The paper provides empirical evidence on the various options for sustainable business models that  Swedish  agri-food  companies  use.  No  major  differences  were  found  with  respect  to technical or social innovation components in the three regions: East, south, and north Sweden. However,  significant  differences  were  found   between  the  regions   with  respect  to  the organisational  innovation  component.  The  organisational  innovation  component  is  based  on two  sustainable  business  model  archetypes,  namely, repurpose  for  society/environment  and develop  scale  up  solutions.  North  Sweden  had  a  higher  degree  of  organisational  innovation than  both  south  and  east  Sweden.  The  reason  for  this  could  be  the  larger  environmental, economic, and organizational challenges in north Sweden compared to the rest of the country, which  makes  the  need  for  innovation  stronger.  The  paper  also  suggests  new  areas  for researchers  and  practical  avenues  for  stakeholders in  the  agricultural  sector  (and  other industries)  to  translate  social  and  environmental  value  creation  into  economic  profit  and competitive  advantage.  To  our  knowledge,  this  is  the  first  study  to  use  sustainable  business model archetypes in an empirical setting in the agricultural sector. © 2021 The Authors

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Business model innovation

sustainable business model

archetypes

agriculture

agri-food

NUTS

sustainability

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