 Driving the electric bandwagon: The dynamics of incumbents' sustainable innovationRené Bohnsack, Ans Kolk, Jonatan Pinkse and Christina M. Bidmon Business Strategy and the Environment, 2020, vol. 29, issue 2, 727-743 Abstract: 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. Date: 2020 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:29:y:2020:i:2:p:727-743 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Business Strategy and the Environment is currently edited by Richard Welford More articles in Business Strategy and the Environment from Wiley Blackwell |
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