Purpose – The purpose of this study is to propose a conceptual framework and research agenda for the development of sustainable business models for companies in the software industry. Methodology – The study was implemented by using primary and secondary data in the methodology. The primary data entailed a qualitative approach where in-depth interviews with five software companies was conducted. The secondary data included a literature review of relevant topics and grey literature from the interviewed companies. Findings – This study proposes a modified set of sustainable business model archetypes for the software industry. The software-specific archetypes are Maximize energy efficiency with renewables and natural processes, Create value from waste, Deliver software as a service, Adopt a stewardship role, Encourage sustainability, Repurpose for the society/environment and Develop scale up solutions. Implications – The revised set of archetypes have been developed in order to set a theoretical framework that can be practiced by software companies to develop their sustainability work. Therefore, this study provides practitioners with a streamlined framework to develop clear sustainable guidelines, activities, principles and goals towards a sustainable business model. Originality / value – This study proposes a conceptual framework on how software companies can develop a sustainable business model with a practical and theoretical foundation. The study proposes a research approach that has not been conducted in the software industry before, using the eight archetypes as an analysis tool. The suggested framework of this study therefore presents unique industry-specific archetypes for the software industry, created by the authors of this study.

This thesis is a two-part exploratory inquiry into how actions of Corporate Responsibility (CR) create economic value for the company performing them, in addition to social/environmental value. The purpose of the thesis is to describe the CR initiatives of a theoretical “paragon corporation”: a corporation that excels in its CR initiatives and sees financial gain in it. The report starts by going over literature, describing the CR context that companies operate in today, and similar work. A model for describing CR activities as business activities is drawn from Nancy Bocken’s concept Business Model Archetypes, and it is proposed as a possible tool for describing economic value creation from CR activities. The first part of the study is a word frequency analysis of the annual financial reports of the companies listed on the FTSE 100, where words connected to CR are counted. The sustainability reports of the five companies that have mentioned CR terminology most in the first study are analyzed in detail during the second study, and are characterized using Bocken’s archetypes. Findings show that the paragon corporation should have CR initiatives that can be modeled after the archetypes, enabling the CR initiatives to create direct economic value for the company. The archetypes can be used when formulating a CR strategy from the ground up, or evaluating existing CR strategy. The thesis ends with suggestions for how this can be explored further.