This thesis starts from an increasing unease at the heart of contemporary sustainability debates: while ecological limits are increasingly acknowledged, much of management and corporate sustainability research refrains from directly questioning the idea of endless economic growth and its (in)compatibility with the natural environmental. In contrast, post-growth scholarship challenges the feasibility and desirability of perpetual economic expansion on a finite planet. Yet, despite its rising prominence across social sciences, post-growth thinking has only marginally shaped how organisations, markets, and corporate sustainability are theorised and studied.

This thesis explores how post-growth principles can be conceptually integrated into corporate sustainability scholarship and examines whether, how, and to what extent businesses can enact such principles while embedded in growth-oriented market systems. It foregrounds tensions, potential complementarities and organisational arrangements that emerge when firms attempt to reconcile post-growth with competitive and financial imperatives.

Empirically and conceptually, the thesis advances the argument that a business transition towards post-growth organising can be studied and realised as a process of progressive hybridisation, that is, the combination of market and post-growth institutional logics. Overall, the thesis contributes a critical yet pragmatic perspective to post-growth-oriented sustainability research in management. By making visible both the possibilities and transition pathways within firms, it invites scholars and practitioners to rethink the role of business in socio-ecological transitions beyond the paradigm of economic growth.