On Green Innovation Inertia

A growing number of nations, firms and individuals realize that the current ways in whichproducts are produced, consumed and disposed of is unsustainable. Yet most actors seem toawait options that deliver the needed eco-environmental improvement without requiring anyindividual sacrifices. It is a classic example of the tragedy of the commons, whereindividuals self-interest brings ruin to everyone. It seems that most firms have learnt tobecome efficient in innovating and commercialising as they currently do during a time whensociety did not know of the problems thereby created. Now that knowledge about the negativeexternalities emerges, firm-internal inertia to change has developed. The interdependent webof consumers and supporting infrastructure of products and services in which these firmsoperate seemingly do not encourage them to change, but rather add contextual inertia to thefirm-internal inertia. In this gloomy situation lies, however, also a substantial businessopportunity for firms that can create innovations which do not ask for any individualsacrifices in order to reduce, or perhaps even stop, the eco-environmental degradation.This thesis deals with the prerequisites for successful green innovations in the automotiveindustry by using an insider research approach, enabling an understanding of what factorsconstitute the firm-internal inertia to green innovations and a quest for clues about how tochange these factors so that a more eco-benign path can be entered successfully, given thecontextual conditions of reluctance and hesitance. The issue of successful green innovations isa matter both of developing more eco-benign technology and of being commerciallyinnovative with this technology, to provide sufficient utility- and identity-enhancing attributesto the customer in ways that bring profit to the firm. To achieve this requires the firm to viewthe market differently and to innovate differently. Firms absorptive capacity, aspiration toexploit new technology, and manner of validating knowledge claims are therefore importantorganizational factors that impact its inertia to green innovations. It is a substantial challengefor senior management to decide on the alternative green innovation path, and arecommendation is given to seek help by teaming up with external experts and their networks