Ecosystems of Collaboration for Sustainability-Oriented Innovation: The Importance of Values in the Agri-Food Value-Chain

Abstract

There is growing recognition that sustainable innovation is not necessarily about new technologies, but about new or adapted organisational models, behaviours, and networks. How people engage in or with innovation is driven by values, but values differ across actor categories in agri-food value-chains. Understanding actors’ values helps us to identify potential for collaborative innovation within agri-food value-chains, and to address potential barriers and obstacles. In the context of the Ploutos H2020 project, we conducted participatory focus group (FG) sessions at the EU level involving actors across the value-chain to brainstorm values, enablers, and hindrances in the process of sustainability-oriented innovation. Participants co-created stories showing scenarios within sustainability-oriented innovation where conflicts could occur between values and others where mutual values were created by multi-actor alliances. Based on a qualitative description of the data collected in these FGs, we identify a range of cultural and social values in decision-making and innovation processes, creating dilemmas and trade-offs, but also opportunities for sustainability-oriented innovation. A strong ecosystem of collaboration across the value-chain, based on relationships of shared interests and trust, is fundamental to innovation. We provide detailed insights regarding the use of participatory approaches to working with innovation actors to increase awareness of diversity in value systems and how it can be negotiated. Our findings are of particular interest to practice oriented scholars, practitioners, and innovation brokers working on the ground to further SOI.

Assessing the interplay between Open Innovation and Sustainability‐Oriented Innovation: A systematic literature review and a research agenda

“…Building external collaboration networks is found to be key to the sustainable innovation performance of strategic emerging industries in the context of Open Innovation (Yao & Huang, 2022) since firms in addition to reconfiguring their internal resources need to realign external collaboration networks (Yang et al, 2020). A strong collaboration ecosystem across the whole value chain, based on relationships of shared interests and trust, is crucial to innovation (Gutiérrez & Macken‐Walsh, 2022).…”

“…Building external collaboration networks is found to be key to the sustainable innovation performance of strategic emerging industries in the context of Open Innovation(Yao & Huang, 2022) since firms in addition to reconfiguring their internal resources need to realign external collaboration networks(Yang et al, 2020). A strong collaboration ecosystem across the whole value chain, based on relationships of shared interests and trust, is crucial to innovation(Gutiérrez & Macken-Walsh, 2022).A study based on the Spanish food industry indicated that the factors positively associated with the probability for a firm to be listed among the most successful eco-innovators include the span of the external search, the joint adoption of eco-product and ecoprocess innovations, the collaboration with agents along the supply chain, knowledge-based capabilities, operational flexibility, and firm size(Moreno-Mondéjar et al, 2020). Furthermore, evidence from French manufacturing firms reveals that R&D collaborations and technology acquisitions have a positive correlation with environmental innovation in the short term.…”

Review and Prospects of Green Innovation Ecosystems from the Perspective of Value Emergence

“…Third, from the perspective of social exchange theory, trust is emphasized as the key to evolution and progress in the green innovation ecosystem [75], and trust can be further categorized into peer trust, ability trust, and commitment trust. Collaborative performance among green enterprises promotes the deepening of trust relationships, and from the perspective of noncontractual reciprocity relationships, green innovation collaboration among green innovation entities is promoted through the combination of innovation networks and communities [76]. In addition, the psychological safety of team members and the social network of the team also plays a crucial role in enterprises accelerating the decision-making process and the process of green innovation itself.…”

Sustainability-Oriented Low-Carbon Innovation in SOEs: A Case Study of Shanghai Metro

“…The prevailing focus lies on radical or incremental low-carbon technology innovation, encompassing energy-saving technologies, renewable energy technologies, and CCS [11,37], which focus on the single value dimension, that is, ensuring environmental benefits at the partial expense of economic and social benefits. Thus, they cannot address the myriad of constraints associated with sustainable low-carbon development and maintenance of the multi-value synergy in the process of low-carbon development [38]. Given the importance of achieving value coordination in low-carbon development, it is imperative to deepen the concept and dimensions of low-carbon innovation from the perspective of sustainable development.…”