Technological innovation toward sustainability in manufacturing organizations: A circular economy perspective

Abstract

Technological innovation has been widely recognized both as a trigger and catalyzer towards sustainability. However, hardly ever manufacturing companies are ready and mature enough to employ technological innovations in their processes and business. Given the relevance of technological innovation in pursuing sustainability, it is hard to comprehend what are the prominent factors affecting the role of technological innovation to address sustainability and prioritize them. Therefore, the prime purpose of this study, applied to an emerging economy, is to analyze the contributions of technological innovation toward sustainability in manufacturing organizations with a circular economy (CE) perspective. To address this objective, a questionnaire has been developed and conducted, also using the Grey VIKOR method and a sensitivity analysis. The findings from the study illustrate that entrepreneurship direction towards innovation and market direction towards innovation are the two potential factors of technological innovation towards sustainability. The implications highlight that CE, sustainable education and stakeholder engagement solutions can be crucial to the competitiveness of a developing country's manufacturing businesses.