Implications of the sustainability transition on the industry value creation logic – case of Finnish pulp and paper industry

Funding Information: This work was supported by the Research council of Finland [grant numbers 307483 and 307484] and Saastamoinen Foundation. In addition, the corresponding author acknowledges the financial support of the Doctoral School of the University of Eastern Finland for this research. The research was completed in affiliation with the Research Council of Finland Flagship UNITE ?decision no 337127) and with ForTran project funded by the Strategic Research Council established within the Research Council of Finland (decision numbers 358473 and 358523. Publisher Copyright: © 2023, Finnish Society of Forest Science. All rights reserved.Global economic, social and environmental change drivers have tremendous effects on the dynamic and nested business environment calling for a sustainability transition to a circular bioeconomy. The transition will pressurise established industries to alter their value creation logic to consider sustainability holistically. The study follows a case study research strategy and investigates how an established Finnish pulp and paper industry reconfigures its communicated value creation logic. The findings of a qualitative document analysis suggest that the pulp and paper industry has started to explore new sustainable path-breaking innovations and create a common development agenda, which has resulted in incremental adaptations in the value creation logic. However, the industry’s narrative of already being sustainable has hampered the reconfiguration and stabilisation of the adapted value creation logic. From a theoretical perspective, adopting an interdisciplinary and systemic perspective is necessary to understand the changing business environment. From a managerial perspective, cross-sectoral collaboration and including perspectives of different actors can help in creating a holistically sustainable value creation logic.Peer reviewe