Building capacity for sustainable innovation: A field study of the transition from exploitation to exploration and back again

• Published in: Journal of cleaner production Vol. 268; p. 122381
• Main Author: Brix, Jacob
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 20.09.2020
• Subjects: Contextual ambidexterity; Exploration & exploitation; Innovation capacity building; Organizational learning; Sustainability; Innovation capacity building; Exploration & exploitation; Organizational learning; Sustainability; Contextual ambidexterity
• ISSN: 0959-6526; 1879-1786
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.122381

In this study, I investigate how a European company with a 50-year history creating and producing polymer products completed an entire innovation project that was being implemented as part of a new, sustainability-oriented strategy. The aim of the new corporate strategy was twofold. The first aim was to recognize new sustainable opportunities and to translate these opportunities into concrete products or services that could be commercialized. The second aim was to build the organization’s innovation capacity such that organizational members would be able to better manage the difficult transitions they experienced when switching between activities related to exploration and exploitation. Organizational learning theory was applied as a theoretical lens, and a qualitative multimethod approach was utilized to build the case that served as the empirical foundation for the study. Five propositions that provide new and more granular perspectives to the study’s theoretical background were developed. Additionally, a new model was proposed that can be used to explain how organizational members’ innovation capacity can be developed via feedforward and feedback when implementing a sustainability-oriented strategy. •I build a qualitative case study on a full-scale innovation project (2013–2017).•The study contributes to organizational learning theory; and.•The study contributes to sustainability-oriented strategy implementation.•I propose a new model related to innovation capacity building.•I identify two modes of exploration: ‘ways of thinking’ & ‘ways of acting’.