ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the case that innovation, entrepreneurship and opportunity for growth within a geopolitically oriented economic policy environment are inextricably linked. It argues that, particularly in European multinational corporation, the challenge of balancing planned and divergent strategic behaviour is a major component to innovation and entrepreneurship through diffusion, but structural market context changes linked to geopolitically oriented economic policies. The underlying problem that the chapter is trying to solve is that sustainable development, especially in energy dependent industries, requires radical and systemic innovations and divergence strategies. The chapter considers the role of divergence in sustainable development, which is defined as the deliberate choice made by firms to move away from expected financially oriented standards in order to adopt sustainable development ethics on a fundamental level, either by choice or by political imperative. The method applied to the research consists of a qualitative metasynthesis of the literature within a document analysis framework, using BASF as a case study.
