Operationalising Sufficiency in an Organisational Context: A Systematic Literature Review
ABSTRACT Efficiency‐led sustainability is important but often fails to deliver absolute reductions in resource use, leaving organisations exposed to rebound effects. What remains underexplored is how sufficiency, the strategic limitation of consumption and resource use, is operationalised within organisational contexts. We address this gap through a systematic review of 70 peer‐reviewed studies, using the Structure‐Conduct‐Performance (SCP) framework to connect enabling conditions, organisational practices and sustainability performance. We identify eight thematic clusters reflecting how sufficiency is enacted across domains such as governance and policy, organisational practices, social norms and infrastructural systems. Building on these, we develop a typology of five strategic types through which organisations operationalise sufficiency. This paper (1) adds a system‐level perspective that bridges structural, strategic and performance domains; (2) extends the SCP framework as a theory‐building lens to expose misalignments that hinder sufficiency transitions; and (3) highlights tensions that challenge dominant assumptions in sustainability‐oriented organisational strategy.
Authors
- Nancy M. P. Bocken (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0137-4074)
- Shahrokh Nikou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0029-5852)
- Erik Jan Hultink
Institutions
- Maastricht School of Management (NL)
- Maastricht University (NL)
- Delft University of Technology (NL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Business Strategy and the Environment
- Published
- 2025-11-14
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.70347
- Primary Topic
- Energy Efficiency and Management
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00