Sustainable Innovation Framework: A Review of Organization, Strategic Management, and Entrepreneurship Literature

ABSTRACT There is a growing interest among scholars and practitioners in integrating sustainability and business to foster actions needed for mitigating the environmental crisis. Technically focused research has examined sustainable innovation (SI) through examinations of products, technologies, and production processes. To answer a call for a comprehensive understanding about SI, this paper reviews literature from three separate sub‐disciplines in business studies: organization, strategic management, and entrepreneurship literature; this provides for a multi‐dimensional conceptualization of SI within business studies. We present a large, comprehensive 25‐year review with 242 papers from three sub‐disciplines of business studies. As a result, we provide a framework comprising 13 dimensions and three overarching themes of SI across the three separate business studies sub‐disciplines as a structured approach to understanding SI. The theoretical implications include a multidisciplinary conceptualization of SI as a structured approach to studying, analyzing, implementing, and understanding SI, and we highlight directions for future research to cross gaps between disciplines. The originality of this paper is in conceptualizing SI as transformations, outcomes, and systems in business. This paper has unique relevance to advancing knowledge in sustainable innovation by offering a consolidated/holistic review of determinants of SI in business practices and research areas pertinent for integrating sustainability in business practices.