Diversification through green innovations: Lessons learned from a German engineering firm

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

Established conventional firms increasingly aim to seize business opportunities in emerging sustainability-related markets. They can do so by developing innovations based on their core competences, for instance in the context of a strategic diversification. While the development of green innovations can open new business opportunities, many firms struggle with seizing opportunities in unknown product-market domains. Yet little is known about how firms actually develop green innovations and what challenges they face. This paper presents the anatomy of a “failed” innovation process of a German engineering firm to shed light on the management challenges of developing green innovations in the context of diversification. The paper draws the attention to five major management challenges: (1) the adoption of an exploration strategy that matches the degree and scope of an innovation, (2) the setup of appropriate organizational structures to separate old from new business, (3) the value of extensive networking and partnerships to access and acquire distant information, (4) the benefits of an entrepreneurial approach to uncertainty involving quick learning and (5) the advantages of business model innovation to widen the innovation space.
Original languageEnglish
JournalUmweltwirtschaftsforum
Volume23
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)197-203
Number of pages7
ISSN0943-3481
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Landscape Imaginaries and the Protection of Dynamic Nature at the Wadden Sea
  2. Anmerkung zu BGH, Beschluss vom 27. Januar 2015 - 5 StR 310/13
  3. European Yearbook of International Economic Law 2022
  4. Five primary sources of organic aerosols in the urban atmosphere of Belgrade (Serbia)
  5. Ten Theses on Technology and Organization
  6. Zur Notwendigkeit ästhetischer Operationen
  7. Nachhaltigkeit in die Schule gebracht: Befunde aus einer empirischen Studie
  8. Ana Ofak/Philipp v. Hilgers (Hg.): Rekursionen. Von Faltungen des Wissens
  9. Jamming sustainable futures
  10. Eine Schulleistungsstudie der IEA und ihre internationale Erweiterung
  11. Netzwerke des wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses im Kontext der Erziehungswissenschaft
  12. The Great Pacific Garbage Catch
  13. Regulierung der Aufsichtsratstätigkeit durch das CRD IV-Umsetzungsgesetz
  14. Oscar Wilde, "Der glückliche Prinz und andere Märchen"
  15. The effect of elevated CO2 concentration and nutrient supply on carbon-based plant secondary metabolites in Pinus sylvestris L.
  16. Kulturmarketing
  17. An Action Theory Approach to the Psychology of Entrepreneurial Actions and Entrepreneurial Success
  18. Intelligenz-Comptoirs
  19. "Das Vaterland über die Partei!"
  20. Einleitung: Blumers Rebellion 2.0: Eine Wissenschaft der Interpretation
  21. Monstrous Bodies in Rudolf Virchow's Medical Collection in Nineteenth-Century Germany
  22. (Hey, hey) We're going wild and wicked
  23. Political Culture and Value Change
  24. Bundesverfassungsgericht und Zukunft der EU
  25. Hannah Arendt
  26. CSR-Kommunikation
  27. Delineating the interplay between subjective safety and country image in influencing international tourists’ extrinsic travel motives