Are innovation resources and capabilities enough to make businesses sustainable? An empirical study of leading sustainable innovative firms

Abstract

Online)IJTM aims to provide a refereed and authoritative source of information in the field of managing with technology, and the management of engineering, science and technology. It seeks to establish channels of communication between government departments, technology executives in industry, commerce and related business, and academic experts in the field. Not sure if this title is the one for you?Visit the journal homepage at www.inderscience.com/ijtm where you can:

The relationship between innovation culture and innovation outcomes: exploring the effects of sustainability orientation and firm size

“…The conceptual framework we have developed partially unpacks the bidirectional relationship between sustainability and innovation by examining two important aspects of innovation: IC and IO. The evidence provides some additional clarification of the important theoretical issues in the literature as to whether sustainability leads innovation or vice versa (Hansen et al ., ; Linnenluecke and Griffiths, ; Adams et al ., ; Behnam and Cagliano, ). Our evidence suggests that the IC of the firm facilitates SO and the SO of the firm, in turn, facilitates IO.…”

“…Some papers have shown that sustainability strongly facilitates innovation (Nidumolu et al ., ; Kiron et al , 2013) while other researchers have been more cautious about such a conclusion (Charter and Clark, ; Schaltegger et al ., ). Further understanding is vital because firms need to decide whether to favour sustainability in initiating/developing new product development programmes (Palma and Visser, ; Behnam and Cagliano, ).…”

“…Recent research shows that increased SO provides a further way of increasing the innovation capability of a firm and therefore its IO (e.g. Behnam and Cagliano, , ). This supports the existence of the indirect effect of IC on IO via SO.…”

“…Second, this paper advances our understanding with regard to the extent to which sustainable orientation can explain the relationship between IC and IO. This directly addresses the issue of building a business case for sustainability‐oriented firms (Hockerts, ) and the growing literature regarding SO as a strategic asset (Adams et al ., ; Behnam and Cagliano, ). Third, the paper contributes to our knowledge of the differences between large and small firms in leveraging their strategic assets in terms of IC and SO to facilitate superior IO.…”

Effect of IT capability and intangible IT resources on sustainable competitive advantage: Exploring moderating and mediating effect of IT flexibility and core competency

“…In this research, it was assumed that considerable investment in IT might not improve core activities when IT flexibility does not interact with appropriate core strengths, leading to a negative influence on overall business strategy and related goals (Tian et al, 2010). An organization must determine its core strengths and focus on it to leverage IT capability and flexibility to respond to customer needs, competitor's actions/reactions, market regulations, and other factors that might be able to affect the critical determining core strengths (Behnam & Cagliano, 2019;Hsiao & Hsu, 2018).…”