A dynamic view of strategic innovation for sustainability: A longitudinal case study of a luxury fashion engineering company

Abstract

In this article, we study how a luxury fashion engineering company strategically introduced sustainability‐oriented innovations (SOIs) over time through an in‐depth longitudinal analysis of a leading Italian business‐to‐business (B2B) firm. We apply a strategic management perspective to this first‐tier engineering manufacturer to bring new insights into how upstream firms deploy SOIs and to what effect, thus determining long‐term technological choices in the industry. We observe that such innovations evolved dynamically from the process dimension to the supply chain and, lastly, to the product dimension, thereby spanning explorational, procedural and communicational practices. We find that the company sustained significant growth over a decade while implementing its sustainability transition, thanks to three elements: a broad and wide‐ranging experimentation in all areas of the company, a continuous dynamic process of learning‐by‐doing and a commitment of the top management to prioritize new sustainable practices. The propositions developed from this case study can inform future strategic analysis and management of SOIs in other firms/industrial sectors.