Building a green learning organisation: how employee-drive innovation can enable organisational sustainability transitions

The COVID-19 pandemic is emerging as a window of opportunity, urging governments and organisations worldwide to accelerate the transition towards a green economy. Despite the attempts towards a green transition, transforming current practices and embedding sustainability within daily work routines still presents organisations with major challenges. These are partly due to a traditionally top-down, siloed and reactive approach to sustainability innovation, often emerging from new government regulations, market sanctions, or leadership changes. Such an approach often results in a symbolic adoption of sustainability which fails to create a sense of distributed problem-solving, wasting employees’ innovative potential in delivering substantial social and environmental value. To understand how organisations can prevent such symbolic adoption of sustainability, experts have studied organisational designs that ensure bottom-up innovation processes, continuous learning and resilience. This dissertation investigates how employee-driven innovation (EDI) can be harnessed for organisational sustainability transitions (ST). Through a combination of academic literature and practice-based knowledge gathered across three semi-structured interviews, this qualitative study will explain how EDI can contribute to organisational sustainability transitions and will unpack which factors, mechanisms or processes can initiate such an innovation process

The Role of Intrapreneurship for Sustainable Innovation through Process Innovation in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: A Conceptual Framework

A focus on innovation alone is not sufficient for sustainability in the current hostile business environment. Environment awareness and social impact as well as economic place demands on firms to contribute to sustainable development. As such, there is increased interest in sustainable innovation. On the other sides, intrapreneurship spirit of internal initiative of a firm as firm-specific capabilities is proposed to facilitate this. In the manufacturing firms, process is considered as critical and source to be innovative. Hence, process innovation is utilized to translate intrapreneurship capability for sustainable innovation. To face new circumstances in the business environment for the sustainability of SMEs, the role of intrapreneurship in transforming process innovation under existing technology for sustainable innovation achievement is another interesting view to be explored. This paper discusses the role of intrapreneurship in attaining sustainable innovation through process innovation in SMEs and develop it into an integrated framework. The framework shows that the elements of proactiveness, risk taking and autonomy in intrapreneurship provides a leverage for sustainable economic, environmental and social innovation. The study further suggests empirical investigation in the firms for future research. Keywords: Sustainable innovation; Intrapreneurship; Process innovation JEL Classification: Q5

The role of process innovation between firm-specific capabilities and sustainable innovation in SMEs: empirical evidence from Indonesia

The importance of sustainable innovation achievement propels firms to consider the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. However, it is important to clarify that not all innovations impact sustainable development. Regardless of the limited circumstances in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), intrapreneurship, stakeholder integration, and absorptive capacity are firm-specific capabilities that could be explored as strategic intentions of management practices in the organization. This paper investigated the mediating role of process innovation in the relationship among the firm-specific capabilities of absorptive capacity, intrapreneurship, and stakeholder integration for sustainable innovation in SMEs. This empirical study examines the manufacturing sector of Indonesian SMEs with a sample size of 190 firms. The study found that practices of process innovation, as a mediator triggered by the firm-specific capabilities of absorptive capacity, intrapreneurship, and stakeholder integration affect sustainable innovation, although at low stages. Finally, implications for the theory and practice of attaining sustainable innovation in SMEs are drawn

The importance of human-related factors on service innovation and performance

Firm size, collaboration, foreign ownership and the level of formal training for employees are just some of the key inputs considered to be important in the amount of Service innovation in Tourism firms. However work has called for a greater empirical understanding on service innovation in Tourism and deeper consideration of employment focused practices as front line employees are crucial to innovation. The relationship customers have with service providers is a key determinate of satisfaction and as such the aim of this research is to unpick further the human-related factors associated with this area of study. Data for this research paper were gathered from 201 tourism service firms located throughout Japan. Whilst the results indicate that committed front-line employees and leadership are found to be the primary antecedents of service innovation, knowledge management and instilling creativity through the firm are also key. Our results suggestion that organizations can leverage the benefits associated with human-related factors to enhance service innovation behaviours and increase business performance

The mediating effect of process innovation on firm specific capability and sustainable innovation in small and medium enterprises

Firms are propelled to be concerned about sustainable innovation as the impact of sustainable development effort affects environmental awareness, social impact and economic benefits. However, the effect of innovation needs to be clarified for sustainable innovation achievement considering that not all innovations have impact on sustainable development. This study investigated the mediating role of process innovation between the relationship of firm-specific capabilities of absorptive capacity, intrapreneurship and stakeholder integration with sustainable innovation in small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). In this research, quantitative methodology using questionnaires was adopted to collect primary data from 190 SMEs selected based on purposive sampling from the manufacturing industry in South Sulawesi province, Indonesia. Direct and mediating effects hypotheses were analysed with the equation modelling method of Partial least squares (SEM-PLS) version 2.0. Results of the research failed to support the hypothesized direct relationships of sustainable innovation from absorptive capacity and stakeholder integration. In contrast, intrapreneurship had a significant positive relationship with sustainable innovation. Absorptive capacity and stakeholder integration were found to be fully mediated by the process innovation for sustainable innovation with the exception of intrapreneurship which had partial mediation. Findings confirmed that process innovation is associated with sustainable innovation. The investigation of this study confirmed that practices of process innovation can be driven by firm-specific capabilities of absorptive capacity, intrapreneurship and stakeholder integration for sustainable innovation

Towards asymmetric partnership management against the background of corporate entrepreneurship and open innovation literature

The disruptive force of digitalisation and the acceleration of the innovation markets are radically changing the way in which large and established organisations innovate and how they bring new solutions to existing and new markets. Large corporate firms have started to rethink their innovation strategy by enabling partnerships with new and smaller innovation partners such as highly-skilled and technology-driven startups. To leverage the full innovation market potential, large firms seek opportunities and mechanisms to effectively manage these asymmetric partnerships and to ultimately generate new strategic competitive advantages. Based on the corporate entrepreneurship and open innovation literature, this dissertation offers broad and deep insights on the still under-researched phenomenon of Asymmetric Partnership Management. By including the perspectives of both partners, this manuscript highlights the necessity for large corporate firms to reconsider their collaborative innovation behaviour in terms of the individual needs of startup entrepreneurs. The results of the empirical studies demonstrate that large firms are willing to learn from the startup community and proactively pave the way for asymmetric partnerships by testing and maintaining new structures, processes, and activities. Large corporate firms invest in a startup-oriented partnership capability to increase the effectiveness of their Asymmetric Partnership Management and to ultimately become an innovation partner of choice. However, startup entrepreneurs are more willing to enter asymmetric partnerships when they perceive large corporate firms to be trustworthy based on different partner selection criteria. The findings of this dissertation contribute to entrepreneurship, innovation, partnership, and trust research and have practical implications for the future orientation and design of innovation and partner management of large firms. In addition to innovation managers, startup entrepreneurs can benefit from these insights and learn to improve their collaborative behaviour and to proactively realise the full potential of innovation-oriented partnerships.Die disruptive Kraft der Digitalisierung und die Beschleunigung der Innovationsmärkte verändern radikal die Art und Weise, wie große und etablierte Organisationen Innovieren und wie sie neue Lösungen auf bereits existierende und neue Märkte bringen. Großunternehmen haben durch die Einbeziehung von neuen und kleineren Innovationspartnern wie hochqualifizierte und technologiegetriebene Startup-Firmen begonnen, ihre Innovationsstrategie zu überdenken. Um das volle Innovationsmarktpotential zu heben, suchen Großunternehmen nach Gelegenheiten und Mechanismen, um effektiv diese asymmetrischen Partnerschaften zu gestalten, um schließlich neue strategische Wettbewerbsvorteile zu generieren. Auf Basis der Corporate Entrepreneurship und Open Innovation Literatur bietet diese Dissertation einen breiten und tiefen Einblick in das noch wenig erforschte Phänomen Asymmetrisches Partnerschaftsmanagement. Durch das Einschließen der Perspektiven beider Partner zeigt dieses Manuskript die Notwendigkeit für große Unternehmen auf, ihr kollaboratives Innovationsverhalten in Bezug auf die individuellen Bedürfnisse von Startup Unternehmern zu überdenken. Die Ergebnisse der empirischen Studien demonstrieren, dass Großunternehmen von der Startup Community lernen wollen und proaktiv den Weg für asymmetrische Partnerschaften mit neuen Strukturen, Prozessen und Aktivitäten ebenen. Großunternehmen investieren in eine startup-orientierte Partnerschaftsfähigkeit, um die Effektivität ihres Asymmetrischen Partnerschaftsmanagements zu erhöhen und damit ein Innovationspartner der Wahl zu werden. Dahingegen sind Startup Entrepreneure mehr gewillt asymmetrische Partnerschaften einzugehen, wenn sie Großunternehmen auf Basis von verschiedenen Partnerselektionskriterien als vertrauenswürdig einstufen. The Ergebnisse dieser Dissertation tragen zur Forschung der Bereiche Unternehmertum, Innovation, Partnerschaften und Vertrauen bei und haben praktische Auswirkungen auf die zukünftige Orientierung und der Ausgestaltung eines Innovations- und Partnermanagements in Großunternehmen. Nicht nur Innovationsmanager, sondern auch Startup Unternehmen können einen Nutzen aus diesen Erkenntnissen ziehen und lernen ihr Kollaborationsverhalten zu verbessern, um schließlich das volle Potential von innovationsorientierten Partnerschaften zu realisieren

İnovasyon kültürü ile örgüt içi girişimcilik etkileşiminin inovasyon yeteneği üzerine etkisi

Bu çalışmanın amacı, örgüt içi girişimciliğin, inovasyon kültürüne ve inovasyon kültürünün, inovasyon yeteneğine etkisini imalat sanayisinde faaliyet gösteren firmalar üzerinde araştırmaktır. Ayrıca örgüt içi girişimciliğin inovasyon yeteneği üzerindeki etkisinde inovasyon kültürünün aracılık rolü araştırılmıştır. Araştırmanın evrenini İstanbul Sanayi Odasının 2017 yılında belirlemiş olduğu Türkiye’nin en büyük ilk 1000 firması oluşturmaktadır. Çalışmada Gaziantep ilinde tekstil ve gıda sektöründe faaliyet gösteren 76 firmada pilot çalışması gerçekleşmiştir. Pilot çalışma sonrasında Türkiye’nin ilk 1000 sanayi firmasında 20 farklı sektörden 286 firmadan anket yöntemi ile veri toplanmıştır. Toplanan veriler yapısal eşitlik modellemesi kullanılarak, SPSS ve AMOS istatistiksel analiz programları ile analiz edilmiştir. Araştırma sonucunda, örgüt içi girişimciliğin inovasyon kültürü ve yeteneğini pozitif yönde anlamlı olarak etkilediği, inovasyon kültürünün de inovasyon yeteneğini pozitif yönde anlamlı olarak etkilediği tespit edilmiştir. Ayrıca Örgüt içi girişimciliğin inovasyon yeteneği üzerindeki etkisinde inovasyon kültürünün kısmi aracılık rolünün olduğu görülmüştür. Ar-Ge ya daha fazla kaynak ayıran imalat firmalarının ürün, süreç ve yönetim inovasyonlarının anlamlı farklılık gösterdiği bulgusu elde edilmiştir

Sustainable innovation and right to market.

This study fills a gap in the innovation literature contributing broadly-based critical, theoretical, and practical insights to assist in achieving 'Right to Market.' The insights will enable an organization to plan and adopt a successful and systemic strategy and implementation through Communities of Innovation (CoInv). The corporate intrapreneur's role, such that maximum benefit derives from the system of entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, and innovation is explained through literature review, consultancy experiences, and use of an illustrative case