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Studies concentrating on digitalization and interconnected capabilities have increased over the past several decades. Digitalization capability and open innovation are perceived as sources of sustained competitiveness across disciplines. This study investigated how digitalization capability and coopetition strategy affect the sustainable performance of firms by exploring the role of internal and external factors in influencing the adoption and success of open innovation in emerging markets.

To test the hypothesis, the authors conducted a structural equation model analysis on 509 firm datasets from the hub cities in China, an innovative battlefield where multilateral cooperation and competition are interwoven for globalization, clean development and the enhancement of economic growth.

The authors found that a firm's digitalization capability positively impacts outbound/inbound open innovation, coopetition strategy and sustainable performance. This study’s results support a series of mediating effects through outbound/inbound open innovation and coopetition strategy. Also, it provides a nuanced understanding of how digitalization capability and open innovation can affect sustainable performance in emerging markets.

The present study provides a nuanced understanding of how digitalization capability and in/out-bound open innovation can affect sustainable performance in emerging markets. The authors believe this model contributes to current knowledge by filling several research gaps, and this study’s findings offer valuable and practical implications for achieving open innovation and creating sustainable performance.

This study aims to take a holistic perspective to investigate how open innovation supports sustainability and the contribution to the Unite Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The study is based on an in-depth single case study of Andriani SpA, a leading Italian company in the food industry. The case is built by triangulating data from direct observations, documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews.

The findings show an organization that has developed its competitive advantage by adopting open innovation to embed sustainability in its strategy and business model. The case study complements the understanding of how open innovation can effectively drive strategic renewal and innovation activities to address sustainability objectives in the food industry.

This study contributes to theoretical development by offering new and insightful explanations of firms' strategic behaviour and coevolution toward sustainability via open innovation. It provides practitioners, policymakers, researchers and students with reflections and inspiration about how open innovation may be deployed to support a holistic strategic renewal aimed at sustainability objectives, such as the SDGs, in the food industry.

This paper describes the case of how the Danish beer manufacturer, Carlsberg, developed the Green Fiber Bottle as part of its sustainability program through an open innovation approach in collaboration with complementary partners. It thereby illustrates how a grand challenge associated with sustainability can be effectively addressed through open innovation and reveals the opportunities and challenges that emerge in that context.

The paper summarizes some key elements of the case and, in particular, discusses some of the lessons learned, which can be further explored in future research, practice, and policy.

The case suggests a number of key issues that are relevant when attempting to address grand challenges, in general, and sustainability in the food and beverage (F&B) industry, in particular, namely: leveraging open innovation in the face of sustainability as a grand challenge; sustainability beyond a solid business case; opportunities and challenges in the face of new business models; the importance of early wins for addressing societal challenges for signals and scaling; and the importance of the Nordic context and long-term vision.

The case describes a recent (and to some extent still ongoing) initiative of how a particular F&B company has explored new approaches to developing its sustainability program. Therefore, it highlights some of the unique characteristics of this case. This paper also lays the groundwork for the establishment of “Sustainable Open Innovation” as a domain in its own right.

This paper examines open innovation (OI) based on sustainability principles within the agri-food sector. The study aims to understand the interplay between different actors and develop a typology of their roles in fostering sustainability. Three key research questions guided our inquiry: “WHY” sustainability is driving the OI initiatives as presented by companies, “WHO” participates in OI interactions and “HOW” these interactions are structured among diverse agri-food actors.

Through a theoretical prism encompassing OI modes, types, practices, sustainability dimensions and multilevel perspectives, we analyzed 78 agri-food sustainable OI initiatives, as described by the companies, to identify and explain why, who and how they engage in OI to drive sustainability shifts.

The results reveal typical patterns of transaction and cooperation between actors and confirm the collaborative nature of sustainable OI in the agri-food sector when actors must transcend traditional economic boundaries and reshape both the internal performance culture and the broader industrial or community mindset. The paper also conceptualizes the roles of actors in co-creating value in the context of sustainable food transitions.

This study brings the theoretical lenses of OI to conceptualize the collaborative nature of sustainability transitions in the agri-food system. The focus on sustainability transitions is dominantly placed on innovators at the niche level, while incumbents tend to be depicted as protecting the status quo. Thus, the focus on the collaborative interplay among different actors engaged in OI for sustainability contributes to offering a more nuanced view of innovation in sustainability transitions. In turn, the development of a typology of actors, motivations and configurations of OI from sustainability transition perspectives contributes to strengthening the conceptualization of sustainable value co-creation in the OI realm.

The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that contribute to the successful implementation and management of sustainable innovation in research-intensive sectors such as the life sciences industry.

The study was conducted through a combination of two methods. The first was qualitative interviews of 21 sustainability experts and leaders in the life sciences industry who were responsible for implementing sustainable innovation. They were selected through nonprobabilistic purposive sampling. The second method was thematic content analysis using the MAXQDA software.

The study identified that successful implementation of sustainable innovation in research-intensive firms begins with the alignment of the executive vision for sustainability with the business objectives of the research-intensive firm. Furthermore, implementation of sustainability practices is identified as a function of organizational reconfigurations that facilitate purposeful inflow and outflow of ideas and knowledge between internal firm resources and external stakeholders, anchored by the objectives of the research-intensive firm.

The study explicated factors only within life sciences industry based on qualitative interviews. The study offers scope for cross-sector quantitative evaluation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first studies to systematically delineate the underlying factors that govern successful implementation of sustainable innovation in research-intensive industries, through integration of the resource-based view and stakeholder theory and thereby provide a framework for research-intensive organizations to implement sustainable innovation practices.

This article seeks to characterize and assess a new type of resilient, socially conscious and competitive enterprise that simultaneously encompasses open and social innovation – aligning both business and social outcomes – and which will gain increasing importance in post-pandemic competitiveness.

A mixed method approach based on sequential deductive triangulation analysis (QUAN/qual) is used. First, data gathered from the Chilean innovation survey is used to quantify the percentage of firms implementing open and social innovation simultaneously, and to assess their relative performance in relation to other types of innovative firms. Second, a qualitative multiple-case study analysis reveals the perceptions of senior managers regarding the applicability of this approach in terms of building resilience and strengthening future competitiveness in line with sustainable development goals.

Social innovation is a relatively rare event (7.2% of firms in the sample). While social innovation occurs equally in monopolistic and perfectly competitive industries, the authors’ findings suggest that in order to adopt social and open innovation effectively, firms need to set entry barriers such as economies of scale. On the other hand, open innovation is a more common event (15.4% of firms in the sample), which correlates closely with absolute and relative performance indicators. Moreover, the results suggest that open innovation enables a greater understanding of societal needs, thus making social innovation more effective.

Theoretical developments coupled with descriptive and qualitative evidence reveal the innovative capabilities that up-and-coming enterprises may possess. The findings suggest that at times of far-reaching technological, social and political change, enterprises should share some of their knowledge and resources with wider society. Only then will more equal, resilient and cohesive societies be built.

This article combines two seemingly unrelated literature streams (open and social innovation) in order to elucidate the enterprise of tomorrow, which will be capable of achieving sustainable development whilst reaching high levels of competitiveness.

This paper aims to explore the evolutionary dynamics of innovation ecosystems in the food industry by adopting both open innovation and convergence approaches to derive practical policy implications to develop impactful innovation ecosystems to promote food production sustainably.

Starting from the cutting-edge case of Foodvalley in the Netherlands, the study adopts a backcasting approach to reach a future vision of food ecosystems from a sustainable food production perspective. The authors set the backcasting analysis in four steps: (1) description of the present and trends analysis, (2) selection of trustworthy criteria and goals, (3) development of future images and (4) analysis of how to reach the images.

The trends analysis has identified three existing innovation fields – protein shift, circular agrifood and food and health – and two strategic directions – convergence and localness decrease. The study reports how a long-term commitment may lead the valley toward a best future scenario.

The study suggests that policymakers and stakeholders can promote innovation strategies in sustainable food production ecosystems by encouraging collaboration between different sectors, reducing regulatory barriers, attracting innovative actors, and investing in education and training programs. To achieve measurable environmental and social impact outcomes, policies should promote entrepreneurship and create an enabling environment that encourages innovation and risk-taking.

The originality of this paper concerns the backcasting perspective applied to the analysis of the food ecosystem. This approach facilitates the identification of a path direction for successfully managing open innovation and industry convergence toward a desirable future of sustainable food production.

The paper provides a new definition of healthy and functional food considering the case of sorghum, which is dealing with environmental challenges, calling for exploration of eco-conscious consumers' behavior in the free-from food innovative market.

Through a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis, this article offers a deep and broad outlook on a sustainable open innovations approach for agri-food systems. The bibliometric analysis includes a total of 198 scientific papers, deeply analyzed through Bibliometrix package.

Results show increasing academic interest in sustainable innovations for the agri-food system, where the relevance of the food-grade sorghum is noticed. An open innovation approach is called for to deal with environmental challenges.

Theoretically, the research offers a new definition of healthy and functional food in line with current environmental challenges. It also provides a deep literature review on eco-conscious consumers and food-grade sorghum as functional food in the context of the free-from food market.

This paper aims to investigate the intersection between crowdfunding (CF), open innovation (OI) and responsible innovation (RI) and identify the emerging trends and gaps in research and new paths for CF research in the future. In addition, this paper proposes a conceptual framework and propositions.

This paper is structured in line with the systematic literature review protocol. After reading all the titles, keywords and abstracts, 172 papers focused on OI and RI were selected for this research. Finally, 27 papers that are based on dimensions related to responsible OI were selected for the study.

Due to CF's multidisciplinary nature, the scientific literature on the role of CF in endorsing responsible OI for shared value co-creation appears fragmented and redundant. Several emerging trends and gaps of research and new paths for CF research in the future arise regarding research methodology and theoretical perspective.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study investigating the intersection between CF OI and RI.

Entrepreneurship across sectors has been impacted by the paradigm of open innovation in the last few decades. Although Open Innovation is argued to impact firm performance the strategic building blocks of open innovation are not discussed in the prior literature. This study aims to conceptualize open innovation and identify the antecedents and outcomes of open innovation.

Using a qualitative study based on open-ended essays solicited from 47 SMEs and startups based out in Europe and the USA, the authors propose an overarching conceptual framework using a theoretical sampling approach adopted to establish data saturation and data analysis was carried out using thematic coding. Market place evidence was used for triangulation of the authors’ research framework and to establish the validity of the constructs.

Building on the entrepreneurial bricolage theory, this study proposes bricolage and Platformization of innovations as antecedents to open innovation. The study also conceptualizes open innovation by identifying three underlying dimensions for open innovation. Next, the study proposes a positive association between open innovation and firm performance. Finally, the authors discuss relevant implications with future research directions of the study.

The practical implication is the development of a sustained competitive advantage enhancing framework for entrepreneurial ventures with the help of open innovation.

With the application of the developed framework for the entrepreneurial ventures, a set of strategic activities related to open innovation can be proposed that would help these ventures to enhance their innovation and marketing capabilities, thereby helping them with a sustained competitive advantage. The present study would also help the policymakers to frame policies that help the firms with a shift toward open innovation.