Sustainability 2023, 15, 2022. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15032022 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability Article Missing Attention to Power Dynamics in Collaborative Multi‐Actor Business Models for Sustainability Konstantina Skritsovali 1,* , Sally Randles 2 and Claire Hannibal 1 1 Liverpool Business School, Faculty of Business and Law, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool L3 5UX, UK 2 Department of Strategy, Enterprise and Sustainability, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester M15 6BH, UK * Correspondence: k.skritsovali@ljmu.ac.uk Abstract: Advances within the Sustainability Business Models (SBMs) literature from the perspec‐ tive of boundary‐spanning business models have received limited attention. Further, discourse within the SBMs literature exploring collaborative practices adopts the perspective that collabora‐ tive forums are always a ‘force for good’. This paper reviews important theories and relevant liter‐ ature and calls into question the dearth of research examining business models for sustainability and focuses on the role that power, and power relations, play in the shaping and steering of value creation. In advancing research on sustainable operations, we assess the implications of ignoring uneven power, and draw attention to the affects and consequences of this omission in the study of SBMs. By embracing an alternative, deliberative democracy perspective, we challenge the sub‐liter‐ ature on collaborative multi‐actor business models. In taking an inquisitive and critical stance on omnipresent power dynamics, we shine a light on the consequences of uneven power across multi‐ actor structures by augmenting research with practical insights from selected vignettes. Our pro‐ posed concept of a democratic business model for sustainability offers a new strand of theoretical development and a fresh perspective on the sustainability and business models literature. Keywords: sustainable business models; multi‐actor collaborative forums; power; deliberative democracy 1. Introduction Advances within the Sustainability Business Models (SBMs) literature from the per‐ spective of boundary‐spanning business models has received relatively limited research attention to date [1]. Our paper seeks to contribute to, and further develop, existing dis‐ course on this topic. Prior to proceeding, it is helpful to clarify that the authors choose to use the alternative expression of Business Models for Sustainability (BMS) in preference to the term SBMs, first proposed by[2], and around which research in this field has coa‐ lesced. For us, the term Business Models for Sustainability highlights the value‐laden, nor‐ mative, social‐purpose directionality of the endeavor [3,4], in a way which provides an immediate acknowledgement of the politics of performativity and consequences of ‘fram‐ ing’ [5–7]. Further, to pragmatically address our preference for an alternative term, we will use the more recognised SBMs acronym while reviewing the extant literature (Section 2.1 below), deviating from it only when we begin to develop an alternative perspective (BMS) and propose a concept of democratic business models for sustainability (dBMS). In positioning our research we find that research discussions within the SBMs litera‐ ture which explore collaborative practices assume an overwhelmingly harmonious and unequivocally positive view that collaborative forums are always a ‘force for good’. It is largely unquestionably assumed that by both promoting and enacting a more distributed multi‐actor mode of organizational governance, it is taken for granted that more positive Citation: Skritsovali, K.; Randles, S.; Hannibal, C. Missing Attention to Power Dynamics in Collaborative Multi‐Actor Business Models for Sustainability. Sustainability 2023, 15, 2022. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15032022 Academic Editors: S. Mahdi Homayouni and Hamid Reza Panjeh Fouladgaran Received: 7 November 2022 Revised: 15 December 2022 Accepted: 26 December 2022 Published: 20 January 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Li‐ censee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and con‐ ditions of the Creative Commons At‐ tribution (CC BY) license (https://cre‐ ativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).