Purpose-Driven Strategic Renewal: An Organizational Design and Business Model Perspective

Licentiate thesis, 2026

Corporate purpose has seen a resurgence of interest in recent years and is increasingly portrayed as a potential driver of innovation, adaptability, and renewal. At the same time, we still know little about how organizations organize for purpose in ways that make renewal possible. This licentiate thesis examines how corporate purpose shapes strategic renewal through organizational design and business model innovation. Drawing on two qualitative studies, the thesis finds that when purpose introduces multiple commitments, organizations face a performance–complexity trade-off in which they may choose between alternative design approaches with different implications for performance across commitments, coordination demands, managerial effort, and renewal potential. At the business model level, the thesis distinguishes between two patterns of purpose-driven business model innovation: reinforcing innovation within an existing value logic and renewing innovation involving broader business model reconfiguration around new value logics. Taken together, the studies suggest that purpose-driven renewal is influenced by how organizations translate multiple commitments into organizational and business model arrangements, and the trade-offs they make between performance towards goals and the complexity required to sustain it. The thesis concludes by outlining two directions for future research towards a systems understanding of purpose-driven strategic renewal: how purpose evolves over time, and how organizational actors interpret and mobilize purpose in pursuit of renewal.