Strategic perspectives of corporate sustainability management to develop a sustainable organization

•Links between corporate sustainability management and sustainability are discussed.•Perspectives of strategic management for sustainability management are explored.•Ways to integrate strategic thinking into sustainability management are presented.

Sustainable development refers to an economic, environmental and social development that meets the needs of the present and does not prevent future generations from fulfilling their needs. In this context, businesses play an important role. However, progress towards sustainable development has been slow, indicating the need for more concrete guidance that will allow businesses to act strategically and successfully in a sustainable way. This theoretical paper connects three distinct, but complementary, dimensions of strategic management as viewed from the perspective of sustainability in order to encourage the integration of sustainability issues into corporate activities and strategies. These three dimensions are: strategy process, strategy content and strategy context. Sixteen propositions related to these dimensions have been developed to explore the contributions of corporate sustainability management to the creation of value for businesses, society and nature. This theoretical discussion contributes to existing research in that it reveals relationships between strategic management and sustainable development and provides an agenda for further empirical research.