The organizational practices and individual competences of sustainable innovation management

In the light of the challenges generated by climate change, many companies are reshaping their innovation strategy to improve the sustainability of their business.Sustainable innovation (SI) has many advantages for companies, however there are also a lot of barriers and organizational obstacles to its effective implementation and management. In this thesis, our objective is to clarify the concept of sustainable innovation management (SIM), by answering to the following question: “How do the organizational practices and individual competences enable sustainable innovation management?”. After reviewing the current literature, we carried out a qualitative research on six SI managers of large companies. By comparing our theoretical and empirical findings, we have developed a two-part model that presents the four touchpoints of action for SIM: design, align, assess and involve. Moreover, this model emphasizes on the four outcomes through which the touchpoints enable SIM: (1) relevant sustainable value creation; (2) coordination and mindset shift; (3) real SI performance and progress; and (4) shared value creation. Finally, this model also explains the dynamics between these four touchpoints at a corporate, individual and ecosystem-based level, and presents a set of corporate practices and individual managerial skills. This model aims to bring a new light on practices and links that weren’t highlighted before and to guide managers on which processes and touchpoints they might need to focus on to obtain specific outcomes. We conclude our thesis by presenting a set of managerial recommendations based on our model, as well as drawing the limits of our work and listing suggestions for future research.