Driving the electric bandwagon: The dynamics of incumbents' sustainable innovation

Given that entire industries face sustainability challenges, it is important to understand the dynamics that lead “firms‐in‐an‐industry” to engage in sustainable product innovation. To provide more insight into the question of how innovation activities spread from individual firm action to an industry‐wide engagement, this paper examines the automobile industry and the development of electric vehicles (EVs). The analysis covers automobile incumbents over a crucial decade for EV development in the industry, focusing on the different strategic motives that especially the so‐called “first movers” used to justify their earlier engagement. We find that EVs became a core pillar of the incumbents' technology strategies through a combination of coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures. Yet, the strategic motives to engage in EVs stayed poles apart between different companies. The insights from our study are relevant for those interested in the diffusion of sustainable product innovation and in incumbent behaviour in sustainability transitions.     

Undermanaged and not yet led: Reconciling management gap and leadership challenge for the new nature of the Chinese firm

The People's Republic of China is already the world's largest social system. It is now well on its way to becoming the world's largest national economy. This rapid economic development of the last 30 years is a result of the economic reforms carefully architected since 1978 by the former Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping. There are several remarkable characteristics of this uniquely Chinese experience. First, it was not conceived as a paradigmatic shift. The Chinese transition to market‐economic models is closely controlled, incremental, selective, seemingly harmonious, and yet sustainable. Second, it was conceived as a paradox. The scope of these reforms deliberately did not extend to institutional reform. The famous characterization “One Country, Two Systems” captures this almost un‐Western idea of disassociating the evolution of the two spheres and allowing the co‐existence of two competing ideologies. Third, it was conceived as a pragmatic transformation, without proper ontological grounding as to how this dissonance will eventually be reconciled. At this point, the main actors caught between the two fronts (markets and institutions), the firms, will have to rise to the occasion and provide change leadership autonomously. The purpose of this conceptual article is to identify the required changes in nature of the Chinese firms navigating this dualist system, in particular with respect to their leadership component by exploring the presence of antecedents that will allow leadership to emerge. In the alternative we tentatively suggest carefully transferring some of our Western leadership wisdom, but we have to carefully evaluate to what extent existing conditions may also prevent us from doing so.     

Overcoming barriers to sustainability: an explanation of residential builders' reluctance to adopt clean technologies

The construction industry has great opportunities to significantly reduce CO₂ emissions by improving the energy efficiency of residential buildings. However, in this industry, diffusion of cost‐effective clean technologies has been notoriously slow and below potential. This paper sheds light on factors that explain why construction companies have been reluctant to adopt energy‐efficient technologies. It questions why some companies have intensified their investments in clean technologies, while others are lagging behind. Based on a multiple case study of four Dutch building contractors, the paper shows that contractors that actively gather information and build internal technical capacity are keener on adopting energy‐efficient technologies. Findings also reveal that it will be a major challenge for the construction industry to communicate the advantages of clean technologies to (potential) home buyers and create market demand. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.