Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) aim to encourage ethical behaviors of organizations, yet studies show that many VSS adopters do not live up to these promises. Existing literature typically attributes the reason for this ineffectiveness to either policy–practice decoupling, owing to a lack of adhering to VSS requirements, or means–ends decoupling, owing to a lack of adapting to the local context. However, little is known about how the contradictory needs of adherence and adaptation evolve throughout VSS implementation. Building on the knowledge transfer literature, we develop a dynamic conceptual framework that distinguishes two phases of VSS implementation. Specifically, we theorize how tensions emerge in the transition between phases since the first phase primarily calls for adherence, whereas the second calls for adaptation. Applying this framework, we develop propositions to illustrate how these tensions relate to different VSS characteristics: stringency, enforcement, and scope. The article concludes with implications and future research directions for VSS scholarship.

自愿性可持续发展标准 (VSS) 旨在鼓励组织的道德行为，但研究表明，许多 VSS 采纳者并未兑现这些承诺。现有文献通常将这种无效性的原因归因于政策与实践脱钩（由于缺乏遵守 VSS 要求）或手段与目的脱钩（由于缺乏适应当地环境）。然而，关于依从性和适应性的矛盾需求如何在整个 VSS 实施过程中演变，我们知之甚少。在知识转移文献的基础上，我们开发了一个动态概念框架，该框架区分了 VSS 实施的两个阶段。具体而言，我们对阶段之间的过渡中出现的紧张局势进行了理论化，因为第一阶段主要要求坚持，而第二阶段则要求适应。应用这个框架，我们提出了一些命题来说明这些紧张关系如何与不同的 VSS 特征相关：严格性、执行和范围。文章总结了 VSS 奖学金的意义和未来的研究方向。