Business activities are increasingly scrutinized for overconsuming natural resources, creating pressure for firms to sustainably transform their businesses and operating environments. While market shaping research is accumulating rapidly, development dynamics of shaping strategies remain understudied (Liljenberg, 2022; Nenonen & Storbacka, 2021; Storbacka et al., 2022). Mainly focusing on successful market shaping by a focal actor, rare studies enlighten the tensions at the beginning of a collective market shaping process (Storbacka et al., 2022). However, it would be highly important to understand those tensions, potentially amplified by the involvement of multiple actors and complexity of sustainability development. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore the tensions in initiating a collective market shaping process towards sustainability.

We study a complex empirical case in the shipbuilding industry. Aiming to sustainably transform the industry, a European shipyard publicly announced in 2022 the goal of developing a climate neutral cruise ship together with its supplier network. However, the specifications and roadmap of the ambitious objective remain undefined, and have become questioned due to systemic challenges emerging in the business environment. Our primary data consists of personal and focus group interviews among representatives of the shipbuilding network. The data collection is ongoing.

We employ the nested business environment framework by Möller et al. (2020) for studying the dynamics and tensions emerging at different layers of the focal business environment. Our aim is to identify tensions within and between the socio-economic technological system, business field, focal ecosystem, and actor layer.

Our study contributes to market shaping literature by empirically enlightening the nested business environment dynamics, particularly the hampering tensions, at the early phases of an intended collective market shaping process. Simultaneously, the study addresses calls to advance understanding of challenges specific to market shaping for sustainable outcomes (Nenonen & Storbacka, 2021; Storbacka et al., 2022).