Published Online:September 2025
Product Name:The IUP Journal of Business Strategy
Product Type:Article
Product Code:IJBS010925
DOI:10.71329/IUPJBS/2025.22.3.5-29
Author Name:Amit Kumar Sharma and Sandeep Vij
Availability:YES
Subject/Domain:Management
Download Format:PDF
Pages:5-29
Despite rapid environmental changes, global competition, and rising stakeholder expectations, firms increasingly rely on dynamic capabilities to achieve sustainable business performance. This study examines the most sustainable firm in the Indian automobile industry and identifies the dynamic capability for its long-term success. Using a novel multiphase iterative mixed-method research design, the study developed a sustainability business performance index (SBPI) grounded in the triple bottom line framework and applied it to assess the performance of 10 leading firms in the Nifty Auto Index from 2014 to 2023. Bajaj Auto Limited (BAL) emerged as the top-performing company across economic, environmental, and social dimensions. A qualitative case study of BAL reveals that innovation—spanning product, process, position, and paradigm—is the core dynamic capability that enables the firm to sense emerging trends, seize growth opportunities, and reconfigure resources for sustained value creation. BAL’s innovation practices, ranging from digital supply chains and electric vehicles to inclusive transportation and emissions reducing technologies, demonstrate how sustainability-oriented innovation can be institutionalized within corporate strategy and operations. This study offers actionable insights for business leaders and policymakers seeking to integrate sustainability into their organizational capabilities by integrating empirical evidence with established theory. This study also offers conceptual and methodological contributions to the emerging field of dynamic capabilities for sustainability, with specific relevance to industrial contexts in emerging economies.
Organizations operate in a fast-changing and often unstable environment with rapid technological advancements, changing customer preferences, new regulations, and globalization. In this setting, relying solely on limited resources and skills is not sufficient for long-term success. An organization must possess distinctive dynamic capabilities that guarantee longevity and growth to ensure sustained success (Chevrollier & Kuijf, 2023).