【作者】 张利平；

【导师】 仝允桓；

【作者基本信息】 清华大学 ， 工商管理， 2013， 博士

【摘要】 近年来，可持续创新对于应对日益严峻的社会和环境问题的巨大作用日益受到学术界、企业界及政策制定者的重视。可持续创新是一个比较新的概念，目前学术界和企业界还没有明确统一的界定。本文把可持续创新定义为以实现经济、社会、环境可持续发展为导向且能够产生持续的财务、社会和环境绩效的创新活动，并基于12个中国企业案例，对可持续创新过程中的社会嵌入问题进行了探索性研究。本文通过观察企业可持续创新案例，识别出了企业可持续创新过程中关键的合作伙伴和利益相关者，分析了围绕可持续创新活动企业所构建的社会嵌入网络成员的构成、性质、角色及其变化；对影响可持续创新过程中社会嵌入行为发生的情境因素做了归纳，并探讨了社会嵌入对可持续创新绩效的影响机制和作用路径。本文有以下发现：（1）企业可持续创新活动的一个重要特征是需要构建包含众多商业性质的和非商业性质的合作伙伴和利益相关者在内的社会嵌入网络。网络成员在可持续创新过程中扮演着共同开发者、供应商、分销商、客户、信贷提供者、投资人和媒介人等不同角色。并且在某些情境下，这些角色具有多重性和动态性。（2）影响可持续创新过程中社会嵌入行为发生的制度、组织和个人层面的因素主要包括制度空缺、不确定性、资源/能力状况和管理者认知水平。（3）在可持续创新过程中，企业的社会嵌入行为是积极主动的，即企业通过识别关键利益相关者，构建社会嵌入式合作关系，创造性的解决社会情境之于创新活动的限制问题。这一发现不同于已有社会嵌入理论所认为的企业行为被动接受外生社会情境因素影响的看法。（4）社会嵌入有利于为企业的可持续创新活动获取本地化的或互补性的网络资源；获得规制、规范和认知方面的合法性；争取工具性的和制度性的结构支持；创造有利于环境社会的共享价值。社会嵌入通过影响企业的利益相关者整合能力、持续创新能力和学习能力，对企业的可持续创新绩效起到积极作用。更多还原

【Abstract】 The significance of innovation to the sustainability has been increasingly capturingmore and more attention from scholars, practitioners and policy makers in the lastdecade. A thorough review of the literature suggests that sustainable innovation requiresthe active involvement and embedded collaboration of a broader and more diversenetwork of traditional and non-traditional stakeholders, due to the complexity ofsustainability related issues and the huge challenges it has caused on companies’ currentsystems, strategies, technologies, markets and business modes. Yet, to our bestknowledge, few scholars has systematically applied theoretical frameworks and doneempirical researches to explore why social embeddedness is so important for sustainableinnovation and how companies should be socially embedded into the social context inthe sustainable innovation process.Given the above research gap, this study frames the responses by companies to thechallenges of sustainable innovation from the perspective of social embeddedness.Based on twelve cases in Chinese context, this study explores the concept of socialembeddedness in the sustainable innovation process. The main conclusions are asfollows:Firstly, this study draws on the literature of sustainable development and classicdefinitions of innovation to define sustainable innovation, which is defined in our studyas socially, environmentally sustainable-oriented innovative activities that at the sametime stays financially sustainable. The sustainable innovation can be in the form ofproduct innovation, service innovation, technological innovation and business modelinnovation. Then, sustainable innovation can be divided into three categories throughthe innovation externality lens: Eco-innovation, BOP-oriented innovation and GreenLeap.Secondly, this study finds that the embedded network built for sustainableinnovation contains a large number of commercial stakeholder partners andnon-commercial stakeholder partners. The embedded partners play a various of roles insustainable innovation process: co-developer, supplier, distributor, customer, loanprovider, mediator and investor. What is more, the diversity and roles of embeddedpartners evolve as the embedding and de-embedding process. Thirdly, using a multiple-case inductive analytical method, this study reveals theantecedents and consequences of becoming socially embedded and underlyingcontextual factors during the sustainable innovation process. Our findings suggest that afirm has a bigger incentive to build embedded ties and partnerships under thosesituations: the higher uncertainty and institutional voids in the institutional level; thehigher stakeholder pressure and lack of capabilities and resources in the organizationallevel; and the higher managerial cognitive level in the individual level. In addition, thisstudy observe that becoming socially embedded contributes beyond bringing andleveraging network resources, like establishing legitimacy, gaining structural support,and creating shared value.Finally, this study explores the impact of social embeddedness on sustainableinnovation. Exploratory study shows that social embeddedness has a positive impact onsustainable innovation. And social embeddedness influences the performance ofsustainable innovation through dynamic capabilities as the mediating variable, whichcontains three sub-categories: stakeholder integration, continuous innovation andsustainability-focused learning.更多还原