Abstract
Companies, by "re-thinking" the business model through the integration of innovations that can reconcile environmental, social and economic goals can improve their organisational performance and achieve more long-term competitiveness while contributing to sustainable development. The aim of this PhD thesis is first to systematise the scientific literature in the broad field of Sustainable Innovation which reconcile economic, social and environmental goals, in order to identify the most relevant scholars and their significant contributions as well as existing lines of research. Second, we investigate the relationship between sustainable innovation practices and organisational performance in terms of external stakeholder's management, human resource management and process management. This study is conducted in the context of Italian manufacturing firms and it is based on data collected from 371 firms; regression and cluster analyses suggest that the adoption of sustainable innovative practices significantly results in a greater level of organizational performance. Among the three dimensions of sustainable innovation, the societal aspects were found to be more relevant. Following these results, the last chapter of the thesis aims to investigate the antecedents of sustainable innovation, dynamic capabilities as a multidimensional factor, and the mediating role of organisational dynamic capabilities. The empirical evidence is based on a survey conducted on a sample of 348 Italian- based- manufacturing companies to test the research hypotheses and the structural equation modelling was applied. The results revealed that firms can achieve a greater environmental, social and economic performance whether they have implemented organisational learning, shared vision, relationship building and technology sensing/response capabilities. Finally, internal environmental orientation seems to be the most relevant antecedent in the development of this set of dynamic capabilities.