The Time Paradox in Business Sustainability

This inductive study of five firms in Alberta’s oil sands examines how organizations attend to the temporal tensions between the short term and long term, which are inherent in business sustainability. Grounding our insights in organizational responses to the climate change issue, we find that firms that juxtapose the short and long term also tend to frame the tension between business and society as a paradox, i.e. as an interrelated polarity.  These firms are, therefore, more likely to recognize the complexity of climate change and the need for integrated, multidimensional solutions.  These insights contribute to prior research in business sustainability and the intertemporal choice literature.