Interorganizational collaboration is an efficient way for organizations to respond to rapidly changing market dynamics and emerging grand challenges. This thesis explores how successful interorganizational collaboration can be achieved in the context of sustainable business, where both sustainable and business value are pursued.

The theoretical basis for the thesis is constructed from literature focusing on interorganizational collaboration and sustainable business through the lens of strategic logic tensions. Empirical research was conducted to validate and build on the identified tensions through a longitudinal case study. The data were collected from 10 interorganizational workshops orchestrated by a neutral organization. The data were analyzed according to the Gioia methodology and the process was influenced by an ethnographic approach.

The findings of the study support the intraorganizational strategic logic tensions within interorganizational collaboration and sustainable business previously identified in literature: cooperation versus competition and environment- versus market-based views, respectively. Moreover, the findings indicate that while the tensions occur on the intraorganizational level, the mechanisms for balancing these can emerge at the interorganizational realm of such negotiation processes. These mechanisms include organic ones (1. value definition through establishing knowledge-sharing processes, 2. aiming for a synergetic approach through building trust and 3. decision-making supported by joint sensemaking and learning) and orchestrated ones (1. support for joint learning, 2. managing and accelerating cooperation and 3. support for the negotiation process) that catalyze organic progress.

The thesis brings contributions to the strategic logic tensions, interorganizational and sustainable business literature. Firstly, it further validates the use of the strategic logic tensions framework within non-traditional approaches to business, such as collaboration or sustainability. Secondly, it gives a structured view of the common drivers and challenges within interorganizational collaboration and sustainable business. Finally, the study provides an overview of how sustainability-driven interorganizational collaboration process may emerge and develop, and thus practical recommendations for participating organizations or orchestrating parties on how such collaborations should be strategized.