Harnessing Difference: A Capability‐Based Framework for Stakeholder Engagement in Environmental Innovation

Abstract

Innovation for environmental sustainability requires firms to engage with external stakeholders to access expertise, solve complex problems, and gain social legitimacy. In this open innovation context, stakeholder engagement is construed as a dynamic capability that can harness differences between external stakeholders to augment their respective resource bases. An integrative systematic review of evidence from 88 scientific articles finds that engaging stakeholders in environmental innovation requires three distinct levels of capability: specific operational capabilities; first‐order dynamic capabilities to manage the engagement (engagement management capabilities); and second‐order dynamic capabilities to make use of contrasting ways of seeing the world to reframe problems, combine competencies in new ways, and co‐create innovative solutions (value framing), and to learn from stakeholder engagement activities (systematized learning). These findings enhance understanding of how firms can effectively incorporate stakeholder perspectives for environmental innovation, and provide an organizing framework for further research into open innovation and co‐creation more broadly. Wider contributions to the dynamic capabilities literature are to (i) offer a departure point for further research into the relationship between first‐order and second‐order dynamic capabilities, (ii) suggest that institutional theory can help explain the dynamic capability of value framing, (iii) build on evidence that inter‐institutional learning is contingent on not only the similarity but also the differences between organizational value frames, and (iv) suggest that operating capabilities impact the effectiveness of dynamic capabilities, rather than only the other way around, as is usually assumed. A methodological contribution is made through the application of quality assessment criteria scores and intercoder reliability statistics to the selection of articles included in the systematic review.

Embracing the Paradox of Interorganizational Value Co‐creation–Value Capture: A Literature Review towards Paradox Resolution

“…Later studies apply these three stages, yet under different names: ‘Searching’, ‘Screening’ and ‘Extraction/Synthesis’ (Watson et al . ). The present review follows these stages.…”

Open Service Innovation: The Role of Intermediary Capabilities

“…Research on service innovation using co‐creation and S‐D thinking (Lusch and Nambisan, ; Watson, Wilson, Smart, and Macdonald, ), highlights the emphasizes co‐creation in service innovation (Perks, Gruber, and Edvardsson, ), stressing the importance of service ecosystems (i.e., networks between relevant stakeholders such as a producer firm and its customers); service platforms (i.e., the venue for co‐creation of innovation); and intermediaries (i.e., actors making nonobvious connections between ecosystem stakeholders) in driving the service innovation process (Lusch and Nambisan, ). Service platforms allow stakeholders in the ecosystem to become co‐innovators (Perks et al, ).…”

Review articles: purpose, process, and structure

“…A new paper by Watson et al (2017), BHarnessing Difference: A Capability-Based Framework for Stakeholder Engagement in Environmental Innovation,^provides a good example of a systematic review, starting with a cohesive conceptual framework that helps establish the boundaries of the review while also identifying core constructs and their relationships. The article then explicitly describes the procedures used to search for potentially relevant papers and clearly sets out criteria for study inclusion or exclusion.…”