Capabilities for Sustainable Innovation: An exploratory study in the Manufacturing Industry

This paper makes an early attempt to extend the capability perspective to the area of sustainable innovation (SI) development by conceptualizing SI capabilities developed by best practice companies. A qualitative in-depth multiple case study methodology has been used. Five leading companies in developing sustainable innovation projects adopting different SI approaches show that "sustainability" innovation firms possess high level of all three capabilities namely innovative, learning and networking, while "traditional" innovation firms have high capabilities more focused in traditional innovation and less on sustainable innovation. In addition, fundamental differences in specifically both employee and customers' engagement different SI approaches are identified.