Sustaining Innovation in Information Technology Entrepreneurship with a Sufficiency Economy Philosophy

Abstract

The use of a sustainable innovation strategy, as employed by the information technology entrepreneurships outlined in this study, has led to firm sustainability. By applying the Sufficiency Economy Principle, the original model of the Innovation Strategy Tetrahedron (IST) is augmented with sustainability. Key premises for a sustainable innovation strategy include: a concern for societal and environmental impacts, fair competition and equality of stakeholder treatment as well as building long-term customer relationships with integrity, appropriate use of resources, diversification to reduce risk, and timely entrance into different market cycles. In this paper, we analyze three firms using our proposed model: the Sustainable Innovation Strategy Tetrahedron (SIST). The analysis showed that during turbulent times, the entrepreneurs with a sustainable innovation strategy were not best-in-class in terms of profitable performers; however, they had three sustainability approaches in common: to scale innovation up from within and scale innovation out through networking; to scope up on core competences in short waves of innovation and scope out for new, long waves of innovation; and to speed up innovation in a fast market cycle and maintain moderate speed in a slow cycle. The result of each firm's SIST is shown using mixed reality technology in a three-dimensional model. The visual representations reveal that the superior firm sustained its innovation through balancing scale, scope, and speed strategies.