Innovation Resilience: A New Approach for Managing Uncertainties Concerned with Sustainable Innovation

Wen-Dong Lv,Rui-Xue Xi,Yuan Wei,Dan Tian

doi:10.3390/su10103641

Abstract

Sustainable innovation is more complex than conventional, market-driven innovation, because companies have to consider a wide range of uncertainties concerned with the environment, society, and economics. This literature review shows that resilience is the prevailing way of thinking in the area of sustainability studies, and the main contribution of resilience to sustainability is how to deal with uncertainties. However, there seems to be a scarcity in the current literature on the conceptualization of resilience in the context of innovation. From the duality view, this paper proposes a new concept of innovation resilience based on two dimensions, stability and adaptability, which contribute to maintaining a high level of innovation efficiency, while at the same time adapting to change. The proposed innovation resilience concept attempts to provide an integration of divergent research streams—innovation management, organizational resilience, and sustainability management theory. We develop a conceptual framework that consists of a set of indicators involving the two dimensions by using multiple case studies, upon which future empirical studies can be based.

Highlights

Environmentalism is an evolving institution and is associated with three different conceptualizations—from the emergence of “sustainable development” in the 1980s, to “sustainability” in the 1990s, and more recently, an offshoot towards “resilience” [1]
As this study is exploratory with the question “how can organizations build resilience to deal with uncertainties in their innovation management process”, the multiple case study method is used in this paper
The theoretical codes integrated as organizational resilience and innovation management theory, and the indicators were clustered into six categories in line with the dimensions identified in the literature reviews

Summary

Introduction

Environmentalism is an evolving institution and is associated with three different conceptualizations—from the emergence of “sustainable development” in the 1980s, to “sustainability” in the 1990s, and more recently, an offshoot towards “resilience” [1]. Sustainability is often operationalized as the triple bottom line—using environmental, economic, and social indicators to measure performance [2]. Since the turn of the 21st century, these three categories of indicators have been perceived as inadequate for predicting and handling the risks and uncertainties needed to achieve sustainable goals [3]. The important contributions of resilience are its specific views on dealing with risks and uncertainties. Van der Vegt et al (2015) suggest, in the editorial of Academy of Management Journal, that resilience is an effective and efficient management strategy focusing on the capabilities and capacities that create or retain resources to cope with and learn from uncertainties [4]. Through the cultivation of organization resilience, it may be possible to develop an innate ability to proactively adjust to environmental risks and uncertainties, and to seek opportunities from them

Methods

Results

Conclusion