IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bushor/v68y2025i6p743-757.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cocreating breakthroughs in sustainability: Implications for global business leaders

Author

Listed:
  • Harryson, Sigvald
  • Dudkowski, Rafal

Abstract

This article examines how multinational corporations (MNCs) can cocreate breakthroughs addressing grand challenges in sustainability through a novel approach integrating sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI), open innovation (OI), and collaborative competition among five to 10 prequalified teams of senior researchers from a diverse and inclusive range of universities all focused on solving the same challenge. Traditionally, MNCs like BASF, Unilever, and Kraft Heinz have relied on bilateral research collaborations with top-25 universities, yielding incremental progress published in papers but not breakthroughs commercialized with SOI impact. But the rapid rise of sustainability challenges requires so much SOI impact that more holistic and integrated approaches to SOI and OI are required, approaches that engage a wider and more inclusive selection of university teams and that combine collaboration and competition for accelerated cocreation and commercialization. We propose a strategic framework that merges SOI and OI principles into university-catalyzed collaborative competitions. The strategic framework is illustrated through three cases describing how BASF, Unilever, and Kraft Heinz have cocreated radical solutions to grand sustainability challenges. Our analysis and synthesis of the new collaborative-competition model provide managerial and academic insights into how collaborative competitions can be established and performed to enable MNCs to more effectively solve grand sustainability challenges.

Suggested Citation

  • Harryson, Sigvald & Dudkowski, Rafal, 2025. "Cocreating breakthroughs in sustainability: Implications for global business leaders," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 68(6), pages 743-757.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:68:y:2025:i:6:p:743-757
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2025.07.012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000768132500134X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.bushor.2025.07.012?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:eee:bushor:v:68:y:2025:i:6:p:743-757. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor .

    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.