The Role of Purpose in Supporting Sustainability Transitions

There is growing recognition that today’s grand challenges and wicked problems require significant transformative shifts in business practices and governance. The purpose ecosystem is an emerging phenomenon of new private sector actors seeking to promote wider systems change by driving and supporting the creation of purpose-driven businesses. In this paper, we conduct interviews with members of the purpose ecosystem to theorise how the general notion of purpose is used as an informal means to govern and transform business-society relations in the 21st century. We find that purpose ecosystem actors employ “double framing” in their explanations and justifications of focusing on purpose. By invoking both notions of “systemic subservience” and “humanistic goal-alignment”, we propose that the simultaneous use of two contrasting, but complementary frames allows actors to appeal to and potentially unite a variety of diverse audiences. Double framing therefore emerges as an innovative rhetorical device used to mobilise and steer private sector actors. Our research contributes to literatures on how purpose is used as a lever to drive sustainability transformations as well as the significance of framing within values-based governance.