Integrating Stakeholders in Product Development - A Set-theoretic Study on Sustainable Innovations

The notion of stakeholder engagement has long been seen as a separate activity from innovation processes. Currently innovation processes are highly networked and integrate external knowledge from various sources. This study examines the integration of stakeholders in the development of sustainable product and service innovations. From an empirical vantage point we focus on 13 sustainability innovations from the domains of energy, food, housing and mobility and draw on a data set consisting of 82 semi-structured interviews with managers and stakeholders of medium to large companies in Europe. We use fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to build theory about the conditions for stakeholder engagement that improve the sustainability contribution of the innovations. The results highlight the importance of building strong ties between the innovating companies and the integrated stakeholders. Interestingly, companies should be cautious of integrating a large number of stakeholders to the innovation process if aiming to increase the sustainability contribution.