The socioecological discourse has recently gained strong attention. Suddenly, most firms now try to engage quickly with precarious issues because consumers demand an attitude toward our grand challenges, not merely products anymore. Starting from neo‐institutionalist critiques, which dominate the corporate green and socialwashing discourse, this essay argues from a largely neglected perspective by drawing attention to the impacts on the longstanding pioneers of socioecologically valuable business practices. Almost no research to date has illuminated the phenomenon whereby pioneering firms lose their unique selling propositions because others are ‘riding the wave’ and reaping where they have not sown. By applying a resource-based argumentation, the idea of a tragedy of intangible commons is unfolded to explain what made this phenomenon possible and why it could even occur.

社会生态学的话语最近引起了强烈的关注。突然之间，大多数公司现在试图迅速处理不稳定的问题，因为消费者要求对我们的重大挑战采取一种态度，而不仅仅是产品。本文从主导企业绿色和社会清洗话语的新制度主义批评开始，从一个很大程度上被忽视的角度出发，通过关注对具有社会生态价值的商业实践的长期先驱者的影响进行论证。迄今为止，几乎没有任何研究阐明这样一种现象，即先驱公司失去其独特的销售主张，因为其他公司正在“乘风破浪”并在尚未播种的地方收获。通过应用基于资源的论证，