| Abstract
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This dissertation examines the dynamic process through which business sustainability becomes embedded as a strategic imperative of the firm. Using inductive theory building on 16 longitudinal case studies of companies operating in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and Egypt, I trace a nine-phase, multilevel process by which managers and organizations cognitively adjust mental models, identify and develop organizational capabilities, and craft alternative institutional arrangements which enable significant economic and social value creation and firm strategic differentiation. I employ a longitudinal, multiphase, multi-method approach over a 15 month period. Data collection methods include observations, analysis of archival data, quantitative instruments and over 150 in-depth face-to-face interviews with individuals across levels of, and external to, the organization. I examine sixteen companies operating in one of three distinct sectors of manufacturing, agriculture, and services. Companies range from multinational corporations to large domestic firms to small and medium enterprises. The Triple E Framework is introduced to depict three anchors representing a firm's strategic orientation to sustainability: extraneous, emergent, and embedded. By examining firm positioning and movement along these anchors, I present a comprehensive multilevel process framework of the determinant and process variables that explain an organization's transition to sustainability embeddedness. I then present a conceptual model that draws upon the core insights of this framework to illuminate the dynamics associated with the sustainability embeddedness phenomenon. To help inform this process, I draw upon a selected number of management literatures including the resource-based view, institutional theory, managerial cognition, stakeholder theory, and complexity theory. While all of these frameworks inform the study, this dissertation makes specific contributions to the resource-based view of the firm and institutional theory. Results highlight the interdependent role of relational competencies and a sustainability culture in identifying and nurturing capabilities associated with sustainability. Findings also outline the process by which firms play the role of institutional entrepreneur in working closely with diverse actors to build alternative institutional arrangements. The end result is an innovative institutional field with collaborative and ongoing development of rules and norms of behaviour that ultimately lead to the satisfaction of multiple and diverse objectives, including those of the firm.
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