Corporate sustainability introduces multiple tensions or paradoxes into organisations which defy traditional approaches such as trading-off contrasting options. We examine an alternative approach: to manage corporate sustainability with a paradoxical lens where contradictory elements are managed concurrently. Drawing on paradox theory, we focus on two specific pathways: to the organisation-wide acceptance of paradox and to paradoxical resolution. Introducing the concept of strategic agility, we argue that strategically agile organisations are better placed to navigate these paradox pathways. Strategic agility comprises three organisational meta-capabilities: strategic sensitivity, collective commitment, and resource fluidity. We propose that strategically agile organisations draw on strategic sensitivity and collective commitment to achieve organisation-wide acceptance of paradox, and collective commitment and resource fluidity to achieve paradoxical resolution. For each of these meta-capabilities, we identify three organisational practices and processes specifically related to corporate sustainability that organisations can leverage in pursuit of strategic agility. We offer a conceptual framework depicting the strategic agility metacapabilities, and associated practices and processes, which organisations draw on to successfully manage corporate sustainability with a paradoxical lens.

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᭹The discourse of strategy is an ongoing project, as evidenced by recent attempts to introduce a sociological element to research and practice by the European academy in response to perhaps more traditional epistemologies rooted in rational economic thought.᭹ This paper proposes that the development of strategy from its rational roots has seen increasing prospects for convergence with the developing discourse of corporate social responsibility (CSR) through notions of stakeholder management, knowledge management and the meta-narratives of collaboration and complexity. ᭹ It is further proposed that such a convergence offers prospects for a holistic approach to CSR arguably lacking in the predominantly discipline-based lenses currently deployed.strategy as a rational, top-down, linear process has been the subject of detailed critique from within the field for some time. Even the most cursory examination of the strategy literature will show that commentators, calling upon a range of disciplines, have critiqued the rational approaches to strategic management that manifest themselves in strategic plans presuming to predict and somehow manage future eventualities (see, for example, Mintzberg, 1984;Simon, 1987;Stacey, 1993). A wider critique of rational detachment and over-reliance on quantification in strategy is most recently evident in recent calls from the European Academy to conceive of strategy more overtly as a social practice (see, for example, Whittington, 2004).An examination of the literatures referring to corporate social responsibility (CSR) reveals a breadth of disciplinary interest that, while perhaps providing evidence of the importance Strat. Change 14: 401-411 (2005) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to argue that the corporate social responsibility (CSR) discourse has taken a wrong turn in its historical development, which risks a restriction of our thinking.Design/methodology/approachThe paper has two main sections followed by a concluding discussion. First, the way in which even proponents of CSR have allowed a search for a link between engagement in CSR and firm performance to become a predominant strand of the debate is explored. Second, the way that economic rationality has developed through the sociology of economic behaviour is examined to provide a novel lens through which to view CSR.FindingsIt is contended that arguments for CSR based in morality and ethics have been at least partially foreclosed by the CSR academy's response to pronouncements on the topic made by Milton Friedman in 1970. It is argued that, in responding to his arguments largely in the terms dictated by those arguments, the critical potential of CSR is diminished.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper suggests alternative intellectual resources that might help to re‐balance this debate, drawing on what might broadly be called the sociology of economic behaviour. The paper concludes by calling for a re‐moralised CSR, reminding one that economic activity is embedded in social relations.Originality/valueAttempts to critique CSR through lenses afforded by sociology are comparatively rare. This paper shows how the true nature of predominant preoccupations in the mainly business‐related debates on CSR can be more openly seen as being economically rational when examined using theoretical frames and language from sociology.

Purpose The UK Government-funded National Health Service (NHS) is experiencing significant pressures because of the complexity of challenges to, and demands of, health-care provision. This situation has driven government policy level support for transformational change initiatives, such as value-based health care (VBHC), through closer alignment and collaboration across the health-care system-life science sector nexus. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the necessary antecedents to collaboration in VBHC through a critical exploration of the existing literature, with a view to establishing the foundations for further development of policy, practice and theory in this field. Design/methodology/approach A literature review was conducted via searches on Scopus and Google Scholar between 2009 and 2019 for peer-reviewed articles containing keywords and phrases “Value-based healthcare industry” and “healthcare industry collaboration”. Refinement of the results led to the identification of “guiding conditions” (GCs) for collaboration in VBHC. Findings Five literature-derived GCs were identified as necessary for the successful implementation of initiatives such as VBHC through system-sector collaboration. These are: a multi-disciplinarity; use of appropriate technological infrastructure; capturing meaningful metrics; understanding the total cycle-of-care; and financial flexibility. This paper outlines research opportunities to empirically test the relevance of the five GCs with regard to improving system-sector collaboration on VBHC. Originality/value This paper has developed a practical and constructive framework that has the potential to inform both policy and further theoretical development on collaboration in VBHC.