Strategies of Sufficiency Under Institutional Complexity: A Study in the German Food Industry

Lena Leifeld and Simon Oertel

Business Strategy and the Environment, 2026, vol. 35, issue 3, 3301-3328

Abstract: Organizations face increasing institutional complexity as they navigate competing demands from their institutional environment regarding financial performance and environmental responsibility. In our study, we examine how 39 award‐winning organizations in the German food industry frame sufficiency, a sustainability strategy focusing on reducing production and consumption, from 2000 to 2023. Although sufficiency has gained popularity as a normative concept, our findings reveal significant variation in how it is framed. Some organizations emphasize peripheral elements while others integrate sufficiency as a core principle that challenges conventional growth logics. We introduce a typology of three framing approaches—sustainability‐oriented framing, selective integration, and comprehensive sufficiency framings—and identify two influencing factors—family ownership and affiliation with the common good economy. Our findings contribute to strategy and sustainability research by showing how organizations use sufficiency as a boundary concept to balance competing institutional demands. Moreover, we also contribute to research on institutional complexity by demonstrating how contested concepts such as sufficiency can become proto‐institutionalized.

Date: 2026
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