Over the last decade, companies have become more aware of social and environmental factors facing businesses. Many scientists and management consultants argue that these new requirements offer tremendous opportunities for progressive organizations and innovation is one of the principal means by which companies can achieve sustainable growth. But, the authors say, the reality is that the managers had great difficulty dealing with sustainable development pressure. In particular, their innovation strategies are inadequate to accommodate highly complex and uncertain nature of these new requirements. In response to this, the authors propose the concept of sustainable innovation, or SDI. In contrast to conventional, market innovation, SDI considers adding constraints of social and environmental factors. SDI, therefore, tend to be more complicated, because, as a rule, a broader range of stakeholders, and more controversial, as many of the parties have conflicting requirements. In addition, the sustainable development of the pressure can be caused by a science that is still not fully accepted in the scientific, political and management communities. Organizations that do not understand these issues, it may well find yourself making costly mistakes in bringing new technologies to market. "Hide
by Jeremy Hall, Harrie Vredenburg Source: MIT Sloan Management Review 10 pages. Publication Date: 01 Oct 2003. Prod. #: SMR119-PDF-ENG
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