Too Much Is as Bad as Too Little? Sources of the Intention-Achievement Gap in Sustainable Innovation

Abstract

Prior work on innovation has generally emphasized the importance of an organization's exposure to external knowledge. This study, in contrast, redirects our attention toward conditions under which such exposure serves as constraints on organizational endeavors to achieve environmentally preferable innovation. We develop a two-stage model for sustainable innovation. A firm in the first stage explores a variety of alternatives and develops strategic intentions to address broader environmental concerns; thus, it may benefit from access to both diverse sources of external knowledge and network ties that enable an extensive search for new information. In the second stage, a firm exploits limited available options to achieve its strategic intentions. We suggest that dependence on external knowledge in the first stage makes the transition toward the second stage challenging, thereby reducing the probability that a firm's strategic intentions for sustainability result in actual innovation outcomes. We test our theory using the 2014 Korean Innovation Survey. Our results show that diverse sources of external knowledge through rich network ties, albeit the positive main effects on innovation outcomes, negatively moderate the relationship between a firm's intentions for environmental sustainability and its achievement of sustainable innovation. Several theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Multiple Goals, Attention Allocation, and the Intention-Achievement Gap in Energy Efficiency Innovation

“…More specifically, self-reported responses to the survey questions can be rather subjective than objective and biased towards self-enhancement and social desirability. Although the KIS has been conducted by an authoritative, government-funded research institute following the global standard and thus considered as a reliable data source by prior studies (e.g., [6,[35][36][37][38]), future studies would benefit from using other research methods and data sources. Another limitation is the generalizability of our findings.…”

“…Therefore, as an authoritative national survey that monitors companies' innovation-related actions and capabilities in South Korea, the KIS provides highly reliable information that helps the Korean government develop the innovation-related policies. Moreover, because the KIS data is publicly open to independent researchers, a large number of innovation-related studies have used this data (e.g., [6,[35][36][37][38]).…”

“…A strategic intention for innovation originates with an awareness of a problem or need and requires adoption and implementation to achieve innovation outcomes. Although strategic intentions are often construed as the most immediate predictor of innovation achievement, intention and achievement are not always tightly coupled [6]. Indeed, many studies of social psychology have well documented the intention-behavior gap, or the weak relation between intentions and behavioral outcomes [7][8][9].…”

“…For example, Gollwitzer argued that "intentions account for only 20% to 30% of the variance in behavior" [8] (p. 493). In the context of environmental innovation at the organization level, Yang and Park [6] noted that, while a strategic intention for environmental innovation results from recognizing the strategic importance of addressing environmental sustainability, setting such an intention does not always guarantee its achievement. Given that firms have limited attention capacity [10], we argue that inadequate attention allocation can prevent them from realizing the strategic intent of energy efficient innovation, especially when they simultaneously pursue multiple competing innovation goals.…”

What Should SMEs Consider to Introduce Environmentally Innovative Products to Market?

“…As the data collected through the CIS is used as an official data source for the European Union (EU) to formulate the policies for companies' innovative activities, the KIS data is also utilized by the Korean government as a credible data source to develop the innovation-related policies for companies. Owing to such reliable features, a growing number of recent innovation-related studies have used the KIS data as a main empirical data source [9,[35][36][37][38].…”