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Sustainability-Oriented Technology Exploration: Managerial Values, Ambidextrous Design, And Separation Drift

In: Radical Innovation Challenges Corporate to Climate

Author

Listed:
  • ERIK G. HANSEN
  • SAMUEL WICKI
  • STEFAN SCHALTEGGER

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Erik G. Hansen & Samuel Wicki & Stefan Schaltegger, 2023. "Sustainability-Oriented Technology Exploration: Managerial Values, Ambidextrous Design, And Separation Drift," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Joe Tidd (ed.), Radical Innovation Challenges Corporate to Climate, chapter 13, pages 351-377, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:wschap:9781800614109_0013
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Innovation; Technology; Radical; Breakthroughs; Disruptive; Blue Ocean; New Product Development; Design Thinking; Business Model Innovation; Climate Change;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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