Sustainability-oriented technology exploration: managerial values, ambidextrous design, and separation drift
Research output: Contributions to collected editions/works › Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Research › peer-review
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Radical Innovation Challenges: Corporate to Climate. ed. / Joe Tidd. World Scientific Europe, 2023. p. 351-377 (Technology Management; Vol. 42).
Research output: Contributions to collected editions/works › Contributions to collected editions/anthologies › Research › peer-review
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TY - CHAP
T1 - Sustainability-oriented technology exploration: managerial values, ambidextrous design, and separation drift
AU - Hansen, Erik Gunnar
AU - Wicki, Samuel
AU - Schaltegger, Stefan
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s).
PY - 2023/3/31
Y1 - 2023/3/31
N2 - Sustainability is a key societal challenge and has become an opportunity for innovation. While start-ups are prone to enter such new territories, established companies are more hesitant to leave current trajectories and embrace uncertainty linked to sustainability-oriented exploration. We present a case of a conventional high-tech firm of an owner-manager whose strong values of universalism led him to initialise a sustainability-oriented diversification by exploring renewable energy technologies. Our longitudinal study uncovers how changes in ambidextrous organisational design and represented managerial values ultimately resulted in failed exploration. Our contribution is threefold: First, we link individual-level managerial values of universalism with organisational-level phenomena of sustainability-oriented exploration and diversification. Second, we contribute to bridging hitherto mostly separate bodies of literature on sustainability-oriented innovation and ambidexterity to better understand how conventional firms can deploy their technological capabilities for sustainability. Third, we conceptualise the "separation drift"as fading organisational separation resulting in exploration failure.
AB - Sustainability is a key societal challenge and has become an opportunity for innovation. While start-ups are prone to enter such new territories, established companies are more hesitant to leave current trajectories and embrace uncertainty linked to sustainability-oriented exploration. We present a case of a conventional high-tech firm of an owner-manager whose strong values of universalism led him to initialise a sustainability-oriented diversification by exploring renewable energy technologies. Our longitudinal study uncovers how changes in ambidextrous organisational design and represented managerial values ultimately resulted in failed exploration. Our contribution is threefold: First, we link individual-level managerial values of universalism with organisational-level phenomena of sustainability-oriented exploration and diversification. Second, we contribute to bridging hitherto mostly separate bodies of literature on sustainability-oriented innovation and ambidexterity to better understand how conventional firms can deploy their technological capabilities for sustainability. Third, we conceptualise the "separation drift"as fading organisational separation resulting in exploration failure.
KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics
KW - Sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI)
KW - radical innovation
KW - managerial values
KW - ambidextrous organisational design
KW - modes of balance
KW - exploration and exploitation
KW - diversification strategy
KW - renewable energy technologies
KW - green technologies
KW - Small and medium sized enterprises
KW - ambidextrous organisational design
KW - diversification strategy
KW - exploration and exploitation
KW - green technologies
KW - managerial values
KW - modes of balance
KW - radical innovation
KW - renewable energy technologies
KW - small and medium-sized enterprises (SME)
KW - Sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI)
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/9a70936e-4105-3cb5-965e-dfd28b736e72/
U2 - 10.1142/9781800614109_0013
DO - 10.1142/9781800614109_0013
M3 - Contributions to collected editions/anthologies
SN - 9781800614093
T3 - Technology Management
SP - 351
EP - 377
BT - Radical Innovation Challenges
A2 - Tidd, Joe
PB - World Scientific Europe
ER -