ABSTRACT The responsible business practices in the sustainability scholarship are predominantly framed as compliance‐driven frameworks, overlooking the role of traditional knowledge and wisdom as culturally embedded logic. This study examines the implicit role of Indigenous knowledge system in shaping business practices, its alignment as well as its implicit integration with modern business practices, and its socio‐economic impact and associated challenges. The qualitative design and triangulation method were used to identify the convergence and divergence of the findings from in‐depth interviews of chief executive officers/founding directors of three Indian organizations across industries (agriculture, construction, and handicraft). Triangulation insights confirm that Indigenous principles play an implicit practice role in forming organizational practices and routine such as ethical actions, recycling, and community building. The findings of the study also highlight various alignment types such as normative (shared value), purpose‐driven (shared goal), representing the nature of correspondence between Indigenous knowledge system and modern business practices across cases. By repositioning Indigenous knowledge system as a strategic normative logic shaping a long‐term value‐driven, responsible business ecosystem, this study extends the existing sustainability literature beyond compliance‐driven model.
Gursahani et al. (Tue,) studied this question.