Innovation Strategy
Much of the management literature focuses on the question of how companies drive innovation, why some companies are more innovative than others and how policy makers can promote innovation. The decarbonization of the economy offers significant opportunities for companies with appropriate innovation strategies to gain competitive advantage. However, for those without a suitable innovation strategy, this situation represents a major risk. Therefore, innovation strategy is essential.
At SusTec, we focus on innovation strategies at different levels. Our research focuses on both company and system level, but always in the context of sustainability. We are currently researching innovation strategies from three perspectives. Firstly, at company level, how innovation activities affect the company internally as well as its partners. Secondly, at collaboration level, how innovation activities take place between organizations and give rise to new organizational forms. Thirdly, from a policy perspective, how policy influences companies in their innovation projects.
Key findings:
- The level of regulatory uncertainty and the firm’s exposure to future regulations determines whether a firm should adopt an offensive, defensive or passive coping strategy (DownloadEngau & Hoffmann, 2011)
- How firms cooperate with others in developing new or improving existing products is crucial for the design and implementation of new management practices, processes or structures (DownloadMeuer, 2014)
- Slack capabilities (capabilities that realize limited value prior to change, but unfold larger value-creation potential in a post-change environment) enable firms to quickly adapt to discontinuous and fundamental policy change (DownloadLang et al., 2015)
- Firms pursuing an open innovation strategy can use diverse forms of formal and informal intellectual property (DownloadHagedoorn & Zobel, 2015)
- Firms successful in innovation manage secondary stakeholders with a clear set of managerial practices that are consistent in terms of involved actors and across time (DownloadWu et al., 2015)
- Organizational processes help firms translate their openness into successful innovation outcomes and explain why firms benefit differently from external sources of innovation. (DownloadZobel, 2016)
- If environmental change is disruptive and characterized by a large number of potential opportunities, firms should pursue a hybrid ambidexterity strategy that combines bottom-up with top-down initiatives (DownloadOssenbrink et al., 2019)
- Organizations can secure resources for innovation activities by making systematic use of framing, including different dimensions and tactics (DownloadHoppmann et al., 2020)
- Firms not necessarily need to build up an ecosystem from scratch, they can also choose a different complementor strategies to join an ecosystem (DownloadMiehé et al., 2023)
- Firms can use product design and (reputational) political strategies to improve the public perception of environmentally friendly innovations (DownloadPalmié et al., 2024)
Ongoing Projects
- Research on system-level innovation strategies towards sustainable power-train technologies. Case: trucks.
- Research on innovation strategies for the implementation of circular economy. Case: construction industry
- Research on implementation strategies of digital innovations to analyze and reduce energy consumption. Case: industrial buildings.
- Research on firm strategy of district system operators triggered by policy. Case: Basel.
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