I would say the following are critical success factors for a sustainable organization in the modern business environment:

1. Thoughtful and workable strategy

2. Customer-centricity

3. Insightful talent management

4. Focus on innovation

5. Flexibility as an important value

6. Change leadership

7. Focus on High Performance Work System & people engagement

8. Alignment of all functional areas

9. Speed (that is higher than the speed of change i business environment)

Dear Aderogba,

I have been working on Sustainability and Competitiveness of agricultural production systems, and I have always understood both concepts as interrelated ones.

What I want to convey you is that, in order to be competitive we need to be both sustainable along the long-term and successful in the 4 dimensions of sustainability:

   - economic: economically viable

   - social: socially aceptable

   - gubernamental/administrative: interact succesfully with social groups, governments and other entities/dobies.

   - environmental/physical: environmentally-friendly.

Also, a project cannot be sustainability if it is not competitive under certain market conditions.

In terms of leadership:

   - Leader as a boss or companion: the social dimensions if of crucial importance, since leadership is not about authority but social acceptability and fellowship (free and voluntary). In this sense, employees must feel that they are listened, taken into account and valued (this last aspect means also good salaries).

   - Leader as a company: If you are referring to company leadership, a part from producing good quality products (this is assumed), the image of being scientifically rigourous (to have scientific publications), give talks with invited researchers, and so on.

I hope that this information is useful for you.

Thank you, Regards,

Alfredo J. Escribano.

I agree both areas are related and equally important. While competitiveness is more to do with today's abilities and performance, sustainability has a long-term time frame. While competitiveness is about that "edge", sustainability is more to do with harmony. You require to have an equal measure of both.

In addition to the above, I will add dimensions to check the existence of succession planning and delegation. An organisation that does not capitalise on its human resources (the acknowledged best assets) will function with average competitivity although sustainability might be there.....but the organisation would be performing below its best. Hence employee morale and commitment for the long term must be measured although these are ;likely to change over time. Thank you.

Wow! I got three expository responses that are highly significant. I totally concur with the three. In summary, I have feedback that elaborated on my view thus:

1. A competitive organization will be sustainable (Escribano)

2. Every sustainable organization must have been competitive

3. Competitiveness is more of a short term goal, while sustainability is long term (Brahma)

4. Human Capital Development is a great way to achieve organizational sustainability (Mehraz)

From the key comments above, I was able to see the following significant factors to consider in organization competitiveness and sustainability:

1. Profitability 

2. Social Responsibility

3. Good governance

4. Strategic Planning

5. Human Resource Development

Many thanks to my prompt contributors.

Competitiveness can betray sustainability. I believe that the best expression to help sustainability is coopetition, ie cooperation between competitors, somehow win-win strategy. In this sense, the key elements for organizational sustainability are: people, environment, and fair economic benefits.

FBoth competitiveness and sustainability go hand in hand. But here we are talking about competing for success or to achieve organizational goal and not just competing with a competitor for the sake of competition.  I did my phd on same topic n study indicates the more the competitive organization is,more sustainable it is. Or more profitable / successful organization is high on sustainability. 

This is great paper to you question:

http://www.stuartlhart.com/sites/stuartlhart.com/files/creatingsustainablevalue.pdf

Regards.

Sustainability and competitiveness both are important. Organizations are required to be sustainable as well as competitive. The factors that are required to be considered must include CSR ( Corporate Social Responsibility )  and triple P ( People, Planet and Profit ). The proactive, inspirational and facilitative leadership is the need of the day.

Great concept Triple P. (People, Planet and Profit). I do love this. Thinking of the three alone is enough to make a good CSR oriented organization. It sure will end up in competitiveness and sustainability.

Hi Aderogba,

The CIPD (2014) sets 2 main factor. 

"The concept of sustainable organisation performance brings together two major streams of work associated with driving organisation performance conducted by the CIPD and others in recent years:

high-performance working practices

high-performing individuals.

Sustainable organisation performance takes both of these issues to the next stage to identify how individual performance and effort is directed within a facilitative environment to enable its translation into performance that is sustainable over the long term."

I would say the following are critical success factors for a sustainable organization in the modern business environment:

1. Thoughtful and workable strategy

2. Customer-centricity

3. Insightful talent management

4. Focus on innovation

5. Flexibility as an important value

6. Change leadership

7. Focus on High Performance Work System & people engagement

8. Alignment of all functional areas

9. Speed (that is higher than the speed of change i business environment)

My Dear Aderogba Adewusi ; I am of opinion of @ Prof. Debi S. Saini . Moreover the competitiveness is always required for progress. Regards

I agree with Jaharkanti - the triple P concept is often called the triple bottom line - financial, environmental, and social.  

My other comment would be pay close attention to organizational culture.  You can have the best strategy in the world, but without a culture that actively supports innovation, competitiveness, and growth, any gains will be short term at most, if not absent.  Culture is the one thing that no other organization can copy - so in many ways it's the primary competitive factor.  Assess and measure the behaviours within the culture that support your goals, and those that work against them, and you'll have some powerful business intelligence.

Here are some journals based on the RBV, in that competitive advantage is derived from: Value, Rarity, Inimitable (resources, practices, polices etc) or VIE for short. Hope it helps:

The co-evolution of organizational value capture, value creation and sustainable advantage.

Pitelis, C. N. (2009). The co-evolution of organizational value capture, value creation and sustainable advantage. Organization studies, 30(10), 1115-1139.

A resource‐based view of strategic IT alignment: How knowledge sharing creates competitive advantage:

Kearns, G. S., & Lederer, A. L. (2003). A resource‐based view of strategic IT alignment: How knowledge sharing creates competitive advantage. Decision Sciences, 34(1), 1-29.

Managing human resource capabilities for sustainable competitive advantage: An empirical analysis from Indian global organisations

Khandekar, A., & Sharma, A. (2005). Managing human resource capabilities for sustainable competitive advantage: An empirical analysis from Indian global organisations. Education+ Training, 47(8-9), 628-639.

Financial bootstrapping in small businesses-a resource-based view on small business finance:

Winborg, J., & Landström, H. (1997). Financial bootstrapping in small businesses-a resource-based view on small business finance. In 17th Annual Babson-College-Kauffman-Foundation Entrepreneurship Research Conference, Babson College, Wellesley, MA, Apr. 17-19, 1997 (pp. 471-485). Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, Babson College.

Leveraging knowledge for sustainable competitiveness in SMEs:

Pillania, R. K. (2006). Leveraging knowledge for sustainable competitiveness in SMEs. International Journal of Globalisation and Small Business, 1(4), 393-406.

Also view attached documents

Thanks a lot Daryn, this is quite some help. I will take good time to digest submissions from the materials you have provided. I do appreciate.