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Sustainable Innovation in the Dutch Construction Industry: Entrepreneurs as Agents of Change

2012; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

10.2139/ssrn.2180509

1556-5068

S.J.M. Harkema, D. Hassanpur Golriz,

Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy

Since Al Gore’s film “An inconvenient truth” sustainability has stood high on the national agenda of most countries. As a result research for sustainability has become an important driver for innovation. According to Rennings (2000) while innovation processes toward sustainable development have received increasing attention during the past years, theoretical and methodological approaches to analyze these processes are poorly developed. This paper describes a theoretical approach developed by the authors, which combines education and research. It is an inductive approach which departs from real-life problems encountered by companies in the construction industry in The Netherlands and is aimed at developing a model that supports companies in integrating sustainability in their business and innovation processes.