The Relationship between Sustainable Business Management and Competitiveness: Research Trends and Challenges

The paper provides a classification for the literature on the relationship between sustainable business management and competitiveness. The researchers analysed journal articles published from 1999 to 2010 and found that they address the competitive advantages of sustainable business management not only in terms of innovation and economic performance (e.g., cost saving and profitability), but also of eco-efficiency. Using the multidimensional scaling approach, the researchers identified three main semantic dimensions: a the operational dimension b the market dimension c the environmental dimension. Based on this representation, the environmental and the operational dimensions are distant from the area including market advantages for the firm. It is arguable that the approach used to analyse sustainable business management and competitiveness will be more and more tri-dimensional and multidisciplinary in the future.