Despite the recent interest in the Industry 4.0 applications for sustainability, little is known on the processes through which digital transformation and Industry 4.0 technologies enable sustainable innovation in manufacturing. The present study addresses this knowledge gap by developing a strategic roadmap that explains how businesses can leverage Industry 4.0 technologies to introduce sustainability into innovative practices. For this purpose, the study conducts a systematic review of extant literature to identify Industry 4.0 functions for sustainable innovation and applies interpretive structural modeling to devise the promised roadmap. The results offer interesting insights into Industry 4.0 applications for sustainable innovation.The strategic roadmap developed reveals that Industry 4.0 enables sustainable innovation through 11 functions. Industry 4.0 and the underlying digital technologies and principles allow businesses to improve interfunctional collaboration and better integrate with internal and external stakeholders. Industry 4.0 further improves the knowledge base and advanced manufacturing competency and promotes organizational capabilities valuable to sustainable innovation such as green absorptive capacity, sustainable partnership, and sustainable innovation orientation. Through these functions, Industry 4.0 subsequently enhances green process innovation capacity and the ability to develop or reintroduce eco-friendly products economically and competitively. Overall, the roadmap explains the complex precedence relationships among the 11 sustainable innovation functions of Industry 4.0, offering important implications for businesses that seek to leverage Industry 4.0 sustainability implications and manage sustainable development.

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PurposeThis study investigates the impact of Industry 4.0 technologies on green innovation performance. In this relationship, the mediating role of green innovation behavior is also studied. Moreover, open innovation is tested as a mediator between Industry 4.0 technologies and green innovation behavior.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative research method is adopted in which a structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 217 manufacturing firms of Malaysia. After collecting data, the partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique is applied to analyze data and test the hypothesis of study.FindingsIt is found that Industry 4.0 positively impacts open innovation which leads to green innovation behavior. Also, the former lays positive impact on green innovation behavior which leads to improve green innovation performance.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors conclude that Industry 4.0 technologies can play an important role to improve green innovation performance of Malaysian manufacturing firms by managing open innovation for green innovation behavior which further improves the green innovation performance. In this context, it is recommended that strategists and policymakers should undertake the role of open innovation and Industry 4.0 technologies to promote environment-friendly innovations and to promote the green behavior in companies. The authors suggest hereby that firms should be given incentives to adopt and utilize Industry 4.0 technologies and collaborative innovation interactions – as they foster a climate for sustainable green innovations (which is also a key component to achieve competitive advantage) and a growing concern nowadays.Practical implicationsFirst of all the research contributes to achieving the broader of United Nations to promote sustainable innovation through green innovations. Moreover, the companies can also incorporate the findings and insights of this study while devising their policies to foster green innovations.Originality/valueThis research has done the novel contribution by bridging the gap between open innovation approach and sustainability fields while promoting green innovations in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). These two research fields are rarely studied in previous studies by focusing open innovation particularly. Hence, the authors suggest researchers to undertake these fields to further enhance the level of scholarship between innovation management and sustainability. Also, the authors recommend considering technological orientation and technological absorptive capacity of firms to improve green innovations. The current study has investigated the SMEs perspective in general irrespective to their sectoral differences, thus, for future researchers the authors suggest investigating the sector-wise comparison, i.e. electrical and electronics sector, chemical sector, etc.; or service and manufacturing sector differences.

University-based entrepreneurship education is facing a paradigm shift between the classical ‘business school’ and the contemporary cross-disciplinary ‘technology venturing’ approach, mainly advocated by engineering schools and other communities outside business schools. The conflict is between structured ‘business planning and executing’ following a tradition of management education, and ‘opportunity search and exploitation’, following Schumpeterian entrepreneurial thought and reflecting the method common to cross-disciplinary discoveries in science, thus reflecting the nature of entrepreneurship. In the latter approach, the entrepreneurship curriculum is built as a platform for the interaction of a variety of disciplines to enhance cross-disciplinary thinking. Based on a comparative analysis of internationally acknowledged entrepreneurship education programmes, this article presents the cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural approach to the technology entrepreneurship curriculum development for undergraduates at Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania. The method relies on the sequential development of individual, team-based and business skills. These three levels of competence development build the framework for the curriculum design and course didactics, which focus on mixed group work, international curriculum design and teaching, and participation in international innovation challenges. The efficiency of the method was assessed using student entrepreneurial attitude testing (at the start and end of the course) and international student achievement testing (achievements in the international business idea contest). The article offers an insight into the development of a technology-based entrepreneurship curriculum which is relevant to universities in Europe and worldwide.

Purpose From the organisational perspective, the authors know that management, including innovation management, becomes less “organised” by bureaucracy and administrative tools, and much more impacted by organisational capabilities, competences and hidden, “soft” routines, bringing innovation and creativity to the core of organisation. The purpose of this paper is to focus on competency sets for open innovation (OI) and is to provide recommendations for OI competency development in companies, linked to the core OI processes. Design/methodology/approach The research is exploratory and aims at theory-based practical indication combining deductive identification of competency clusters and inductive model development. Thus, the authors apply quantitative methods to data collection and analysis. The authors conducted an extensive literature review on competence challenges with regard to execution of OI, and empirical data analysis based on a large-scale structured industrial survey in Europe (N=264), leading to the development of competency sets for companies. SPSS tools are applied for empirical tests. Findings The authors develop a generic OI competency model applicable across industries, combined with organisational implications for sustaining OI management capabilities. The research clusters competencies based on the empirical analysis, which addresses the various challenges of OI, leading to recommendations for competency management in an OI context. Research limitations/implications The data were collected from one key informant per company. Although the authors made efforts to ensure that this was a senior manager responsible for innovation, the authors cannot exclude some bias in the way that OI activities and related competencies are perceived. Exploratory nature of the research, which calls for a more systematic investigation of the OI activity modes and the OI competencies resulting competency model. In particular, the competencies could be tested on an inter-professional sample of employees with involvement in and/or responsibility for innovation, development, and HR management, as well as on leaders of innovating companies. Third, although significant in size for the analyses undertaken, the sample is not large enough to enable a more fine-tuned analysis of regional differences across Europe in the way that OI is managed through the development and implementation of competencies. Practical implications The research contributes to the OI management field with an outlined OI competency profile that can be implemented flexibly and tailored to individual firm’s needs. It brings indications for both further theory building and practice of innovation organisation, especially with regard to human resource development and organisational capability building for OI. Social implications The social implications of the paper result from the contribution to innovation management competency development in OI regimes, which is an important tool for designing contemporary educational programmes, contributes to OI management sophistication in business which is especially important during the economy slowdown and search for new sources of growth and productivity, and supports firms productive engagement in OI ecosystems and collective technology upgrading towards higher societal benefits and stakeholder involvement. Originality/value An empirically grounded OI competency model is proposed with an implication to support human resource development for OI. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there has been no prior attempt to build such a model. The distinguished feature of the research is its extensive European coverage of 35 countries and multinational scope. The empirical validation strategy makes the research extremely relevant for management decisions related to human factors related OI capability development in organisations.