ABSTRACT
Radical innovation is a key to sustainability and to firms’ long-term competitive advantage because this type of innovation involves the development of technologies that represent a fundamental change from firms’ existing practices, knowledge, principles, and ideas. Different types of innovations require various knowledge bases and types of expertise. Incremental innovation requires a deep and refined understanding of existing knowledge, whereas radical innovation requires entirely new knowledge and skills that may introduce substantial changes to a firm’s existing knowledge, capabilities, and routines. To obtain access to the knowledge needed to develop radical innovation for sustainability, firms can be involved in research centers where firms collaborate with a diverse set of partners, such as universities and R&D organizations. This chapter addresses the role of research centers in developing radical innovation for sustainability and discusses firm enablers for managing innovation development during three phases of a research center: the establishing phase, the performance phase, and the end phase. This chapter provides important implications and guidelines for firms on how to manage radical innovation for sustainability in research centers.
