Building a Sustainable Manufacturing Industry: The Role of Innovativeness and Other Strategic Factors

ABSTRACT Sustainable manufacturing is an effective way to improve organizational performance. In this sense, this research aims to analyze the determining factors of the success of the Brazilian manufacturing industry and evaluate innovativeness (Innovation Capacity) as a central point of sustainable manufacturing. The research was conducted through a survey to 1070 manufacturing industry companies from the Automotive Metal–Mechanical Clusters, Furniture Industry Cluster, and Garment Industry Cluster sectors. A structural equation modeling methodology and cluster analysis method were used to analyze the data. Among the results of this research, it is highlighted that Innovation Capacity is the central point of sustainable manufacturing, in which Innovativeness positively influences Sustainable Competitive Advantage and Organizational Performance. Among the contributions of this research is the framework validation for analyzing the factors that influence sustainable manufacturing. This study brings results that significantly contribute to the development of a sustainable manufacturing industry, which supports the achievement of Global Goals 9—Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure.