Sustainability oriented innovation narratives: Learning from nature inspired innovation

Recent research suggests that sustainability-oriented innovation may require different circumstances within organizations than traditional innovation research has revealed. More specifically, nature-inspired innovation (NII) has become increasingly common in recent years, and yet it is not fully understood how it is perceived within adopting organizations. This study addresses this gap by identifying how individual accounts collectively form organizational narratives that shape sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI) processes within MNCs and three SOI narratives of amongst teams implementing NII in seven multinational corporations. Cases were selected for their application of NII approaches including biomimicry, cradle to cradle, circular economy, and industrial ecology (collectively referred to as nature-inspired innovation). Using data generated from semi-structured interviews (n = 52) and NII project documents, three types of organizational narratives related to SOI were identified: Ambiguous, Accountable, and Aspirational. Narratives of SOI in organizations adopting NII are strongly influenced by overall stage of corporate sustainability; the engagement of leadership, and the innovation infrastructure and culture.