Determinant Factors of Organizational Learning for Environmental Innovation: A Multicase Study

Abstract

As environmental issues guide the actions of companies through their innovation agenda, organizational learning emerges as an important element of analysis. It has been suggested that the concepts of organizational learning and learning for sustainability must converge in order to establishing themselves as antecedents of the environmental innovation process, and from there a new field of analysis - Organizational Learning for Environmental Innovation. This work aims to identify inducers that determine organizational learning for environmental innovation. A conceptual analysis model was developed and applied through a multicase study of three companies. As analyzed, the most important variables for the consolidation of the learning process were regulation, entrepreneurs, Research & Development (R&D) networks and the existence of an environmental management process. These are all very important for learning process consolidation. It is inferred that organizational learning process variables for environmental innovation differ in intensity depending on the business model adopted, the degree of manager autonomy, the type of employee environmental education, the cultural environment and entrepreneur profile.

Key words:
organizational learning; learning for sustainability; environmental innovation