Sustainability-oriented innovation
A mixed methods approach
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2017-06-02
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Universidad de Deusto
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Sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI) has been indicated as one of the most effective strategies through which businesses may contribute to sustainable development. However, the addition of social and environmental goals to economic objectives results in new trade-offs that increase the complexity of the innovation process. This must be tackled by businesses, which undergo an organisational transformation to gradually ingrain SOI practices. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to elaborate on existing theory on SOI at the firm level, in order to understand how businesses engage in SOI.
The thesis utilises both qualitative and quantitative methods to examine SOI at the firm level from system-thinking and dynamic capabilities approaches. The results suggest that firms engage in SOI in a non-linear, path-dependent journey whereby dynamic capabilities in the strategic dimensions of sustainability-oriented market-sensing and seizing, sustainability embeddedness and sustainability based talent, team-building, networking and leadership are developed in increasing levels of complexity (incremental, renewing and regenerative). The development of such dynamic capabilities for SOI is affected not only by the internal path-dependent processes and deliberate decisions taken at the organisational level, but also by change occurred in the economic, social and environmental systems in which the firm is embedded, and the knowledge it is able to obtain from it.
The study contributes to knowledge on SOI explaining the main ontological components of SOI; identifying three hierarchies of dynamic capabilities for SOI across three strategic dimensions of SOI; observing that market responsiveness and knowledge assimilation are relevant features of sustainability-oriented companies; demonstrating the relevance of alliance capabilities for SOI; examining the specific knowledge search strategies that yield best results for different SOI outcomes and illustrating the positive relationship between SOI outcomes and performance.
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Ciencias económicas, Economía del cambio tecnológico