CULTURAL TENSIONS AND VALUES-ACTION GAPS IN SUSTAINABILITY-ORIENTED INNOVATION: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC INQUIRY
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in: International Journal of Innovation Management, 2024.
Publikation: Beiträge in Zeitschriften › Zeitschriftenaufsätze › Forschung › begutachtet
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TY - JOUR
T1 - CULTURAL TENSIONS AND VALUES-ACTION GAPS IN SUSTAINABILITY-ORIENTED INNOVATION
T2 - AN ETHNOGRAPHIC INQUIRY
AU - Breuer, Henning
AU - Ivanov, Kiril
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2024 World Scientific Publishing Company.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - European companies have widely adopted sustainability goals as part of their strategy and normative guidelines but struggle to facilitate organisation-wide cultural transformation towards more sustainable development. Despite the rapid development of theoretical concepts and methods for values-based and sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI), we still do not understand the discrepancies between sustainability-oriented values and strategies on the one hand and their insufficient translation into innovation-related practices on the other. In order to advance our understanding of the cultural tensions and values-action gaps that constrain SOI at the organisational level and to derive corresponding measures for building values-based innovation cultures, we conducted ethnographic research at a leading technical inspection company in Germany. The resulting insights reveal tensions and gaps between espoused values of corporate sustainability and everyday practices with regard to innovation culture, vertical and horizontal integration, external interfaces, practices and methods and personal alignment. Their discussion enriches our theoretical understanding of values-based and sustainable innovation practices and identifies areas and entry points for managerial intervention to promote a sustainable innovation culture.
AB - European companies have widely adopted sustainability goals as part of their strategy and normative guidelines but struggle to facilitate organisation-wide cultural transformation towards more sustainable development. Despite the rapid development of theoretical concepts and methods for values-based and sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI), we still do not understand the discrepancies between sustainability-oriented values and strategies on the one hand and their insufficient translation into innovation-related practices on the other. In order to advance our understanding of the cultural tensions and values-action gaps that constrain SOI at the organisational level and to derive corresponding measures for building values-based innovation cultures, we conducted ethnographic research at a leading technical inspection company in Germany. The resulting insights reveal tensions and gaps between espoused values of corporate sustainability and everyday practices with regard to innovation culture, vertical and horizontal integration, external interfaces, practices and methods and personal alignment. Their discussion enriches our theoretical understanding of values-based and sustainable innovation practices and identifies areas and entry points for managerial intervention to promote a sustainable innovation culture.
KW - innovation practices
KW - organisational culture
KW - rapid ethnography
KW - Sustainability-oriented innovation
KW - tensions
KW - values-action gaps
KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85194919027&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1142/S1363919624500051
DO - 10.1142/S1363919624500051
M3 - Journal articles
AN - SCOPUS:85194919027
JO - International Journal of Innovation Management
JF - International Journal of Innovation Management
SN - 1363-9196
M1 - 2450005
ER -