Intellectual human capital, corporate social innovation and sustainable development: a conceptual framework

Abstract

Corporate social innovation (CSI) is an emerging concept that is fundamental for 21st-century businesses. Human capital plays a vital role in firms that seek to pursue CSI goals. This study introduces a management control system as an approach to achieve strong sustainability in business and society through CSI. This paper seeks to examine the role of intellectual human capital in CSI. The paper finds that CSI has distinctive corporate research and development activities that can be applied to complex sustainability issues. The paper reveals that the sustainability of business and society is dependent on factors of intellectual human capital. The theoretical findings reveal that the nexus between intellectual human capital, CSI and the sustainability of business and society can be explained within the assumptions of the theory of the resource-based view (RBV). This paper offers an in-depth review of the relationship between sustainability-related intellectual human capital and CSI.