IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i11p6355-d568314.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Glancing through Two Decades of Research on the Human Side of Sustainable Innovation : The Past, the Present, and Directions for Future Research

Author

Listed:
  • Jan Kratzer

    (Department of Technology and Management, Technische Universität Berlin, 10623 Berlin, Germany)

  • Dodo zu Knyphausen-Aufseß

    (Department of Technology and Management, Technische Universität Berlin, 10623 Berlin, Germany)

  • Gunter Festel

    (Department of Technology and Management, Technische Universität Berlin, 10623 Berlin, Germany)

Abstract

The increasingly negative effects of climate change are caused by humans and can be solved only by humans. In the past two decades, researchers have conducted considerable studies devoted to the human side of sustainable innovation. The present work aimed to provide a structured overview of these studies in the frame of the Special Issue: The Human Side of Sustainable Innovations. In contrast to the concepts capturing the human side, the definitions and operationalizations of sustainability and sustainable innovations are considerably ambiguous. We identified six journals that exemplify three factors on the human side of sustainable innovation and elucidate the concept. For their findings to be conclusive, researchers need to engage in significant efforts in investigating the differences in the interpretation and recognition of sustainability, in establishing consensus on the sustainable behavior of actors, and in executing comparable studies and experiments. Moreover, future research needs to establish generally accepted evaluations and measurements of sustainability.

Suggested Citation

  • Jan Kratzer & Dodo zu Knyphausen-Aufseß & Gunter Festel, 2021. "Glancing through Two Decades of Research on the Human Side of Sustainable Innovation : The Past, the Present, and Directions for Future Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-11, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:11:p:6355-:d:568314
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/6355/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/6355/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hockerts, Kai & Wüstenhagen, Rolf, 2010. "Greening Goliaths versus emerging Davids -- Theorizing about the role of incumbents and new entrants in sustainable entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 481-492, September.
    2. Christiana Weber & Jan Kratzer, 2013. "Social entrepreneurship, social networks and social value creation: a quantitative analysis among social entrepreneurs," International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 5(3), pages 217-239.
    3. Karina Cagarman & Jan Kratzer & Katharina Osbelt, 2020. "Social Entrepreneurship: Dissection of a Phenomenon through a German Lens," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-18, September.
    4. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    5. María Elena López Reyes & Willem A. Zwagers & Ingrid J. Mulder, 2020. "Considering the Human-Dimension to Make Sustainable Transitions Actionable," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-25, October.
    6. Laura H. Middermann & Jan Kratzer & Susanne Perner, 2020. "The Impact of Environmental Risk Exposure on the Determinants of Sustainable Entrepreneurship," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-15, February.
    7. Niklas Fernqvist & Mats Lundqvist, 2021. "Entrepreneurial Sustainability Engagement of Insiders Initiating Energy System Transition," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-16, January.
    8. Glen L. Urban & Eric von Hippel, 1988. "Lead User Analyses for the Development of New Industrial Products," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(5), pages 569-582, May.
    9. Voinov, Alexey & Farley, Joshua, 2007. "Reconciling sustainability, systems theory and discounting," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 104-113, June.
    10. Jana Möller & Steffen Herm, 2021. "Perceptions of Green User Entrepreneurs’ Performance—Is Sustainability an Asset or a Liability for Innovators?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-12, March.
    11. Katarzyna Krot & Dagmara Lewicka, 2011. "Human side of innovation-individual and organisational environment-related aspects: the case of IBM," International Journal of Innovation and Learning, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 9(4), pages 352-371.
    12. Michael L. Tushman & Ralph Katz, 1980. "External Communication and Project Performance: An Investigation into the Role of Gatekeepers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(11), pages 1071-1085, November.
    13. Bogers, Marcel & Foss, Nicolai J. & Lyngsie, Jacob, 2018. "The “human side” of open innovation: The role of employee diversity in firm-level openness," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 218-231.
    14. Rob Lubberink & Vincent Blok & Johan van Ophem & Gerben van der Velde & Onno Omta, 2018. "Innovation for Society: Towards a Typology of Developing Innovations by Social Entrepreneurs," Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 52-78, January.
    15. Federica Cisilino & Alessandro Monteleone, 2020. "Designing Rural Policies for Sustainable Innovations through a Participatory Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-17, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lubna Rashid, 2022. "Bursting the bubble: why sustainability initiatives often lack adequate intention to action translation," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 1-9, June.
    2. Del Giudice, Manlio & Scuotto, Veronica & Papa, Armando & Singh, Sanjay Kumar, 2023. "The ‘bright’ side of innovation management for international new ventures," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Karina Cagarman & Jan Kratzer & Laura Helen von Arnim & Kristina Fajga & Michaela Jacqueline Gieseke, 2020. "Social Entrepreneurship on Its Way to Significance: The Case of Germany," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-13, October.
    2. Bahadur Ali Soomro & Ikhtiar Ali Ghumro & Naimatullah Shah, 2020. "Green entrepreneurship inclination among the younger generation: An avenue towards a green economy," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(4), pages 585-594, July.
    3. Nicolai J. Foss & Keld Laursen & Torben Pedersen, 2011. "Linking Customer Interaction and Innovation: The Mediating Role of New Organizational Practices," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(4), pages 980-999, August.
    4. Brigitte Hoogendoorn & Daniela Guerra & Peter Zwan, 2015. "What drives environmental practices of SMEs?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 759-781, April.
    5. Heshmati, Almas, 2015. "A Review of the Circular Economy and its Implementation," IZA Discussion Papers 9611, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Alexandra Köves & Tamás Veress & Judit Gáspár & Réka Matolay, 2021. "Conceptualizing Cuvée Organizations: Characteristics Leading towards Sustainable Decision-Making Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-24, December.
    7. Denise Fischer & Malte Brettel & René Mauer, 2020. "The Three Dimensions of Sustainability: A Delicate Balancing Act for Entrepreneurs Made More Complex by Stakeholder Expectations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 87-106, April.
    8. Hippel, Eric von., 1995. ""Sticky information" and new marketing research methods," Working papers 3753-95., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    9. Miguel-Angel Galindo-Martín & María-Soledad Castaño-Martínez & María-Teresa Méndez-Picazo, 2020. "The Relationship between Green Innovation, Social Entrepreneurship, and Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-19, June.
    10. Simone Søgaard Jacobsen & Steffen Korsgaard & Franziska Günzel-Jensen, 2020. "Towards a Typology of Sustainability Practices: A Study of the Potentials and Challenges of Sustainable Practices at the Firm Level," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-22, June.
    11. Ammermüller, Britta & Greiling, Dorothea & Löwe, Jürgen & Schaefer, Christina & Theuvsen, Ludwig, 2012. "Nachhaltigkeit und Nachhaltigkeitsmanagement in öffentlichen Unternehmen," ZögU - Zeitschrift für öffentliche und gemeinwirtschaftliche Unternehmen, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 35(4), pages 386-400.
    12. Ana Criado-Gomis & Amparo Cervera-Taulet & Maria-Angeles Iniesta-Bonillo, 2017. "Sustainable Entrepreneurial Orientation: A Business Strategic Approach for Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-20, September.
    13. Yanyan Liu & Ying Cheng & Wei Liu, 2018. "Understanding Gatekeeping Transformation in the Chinese EV Industry: An Exploratory Study of the Focal Firms' Cross-industrial Interactions," Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems - scientific journal, Croatian Interdisciplinary Society Provider Homepage: http://indecs.eu, vol. 16(3-B), pages 485-503.
    14. Medase, Kehinde, 2019. "The Impact of the Heterogeneity of Employees’ Qualifications on Firm-level Innovation Evidence from Nigerian Firms," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203563, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Charlotte S. Diepolder & Holger Weitzel & Johannes Huwer, 2021. "Competence Frameworks of Sustainable Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-26, December.
    16. Korapin Jirapong & Karina Cagarman & Laura von Arnim, 2021. "Road to Sustainability: University–Start-Up Collaboration," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-19, May.
    17. Matthias Filser & Sascha Kraus & Norat Roig-Tierno & Norbert Kailer & Ulrike Fischer, 2019. "Entrepreneurship as Catalyst for Sustainable Development: Opening the Black Box," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-18, August.
    18. María Huertas González-Serrano & Vicente Añó Sanz & Rómulo Jacobo González-García, 2020. "Sustainable Sport Entrepreneurship and Innovation: A Bibliometric Analysis of This Emerging Field of Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-26, June.
    19. Anja Gaudig & Bernd Ebersberger & Andreas Kuckertz, 2021. "Sustainability-Oriented Macro Trends and Innovation Types—Exploring Different Organization Types Tackling the Global Sustainability Megatrend," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-19, October.
    20. Diego Matricano, 2017. "The influence of sustainable entrepreneurship culture on start-up expectations: A comparative analysis," RIVISTA DI STUDI SULLA SOSTENIBILITA', FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 0(1), pages 71-89.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:11:p:6355-:d:568314. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.