Sustainable Innovation in the Brazilian Textile Industry

Abstract

This article deals with the identification of factors which influence the development of sustainable innovations and how these factors can be identified in the Brazilian textile industry. For this, a case study of three companies in the textile sector (Yin, Case study research: Design and methods, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2013), which included the conducting semi-structured interviews with three executives of companies operating in the market studied were carried out. The initial goal of the interviews was, first, to identify whether companies conduct or not, sustainable innovation and, if so, to analyze the factors that lead to this kind of innovation (Hall and Vredenburg, MIT Sloan Management Review, 45(1), 61–68, 2003; Bansal, Strategic Management Journal, 26(3), 197–218, 2005; Ottman et al., Environment, 48(5), 22–36, 2006; Hansen et al., International Journal of Innovation Management, 13(4), 683–713, 2009). For the treatment of data, content analysis was used (Ghiglione and Matalon, O inquérito: Teoria e Prática, Celta Editora, Oeiras, 1997; Bardin, Análise de Conteúdo, Editora Edições 70, Lisboa, 2008), and the result revealed that: factors, such as, fines, penalties and media attention put pressure on organizations to achieve sustainable innovation in search of a better image among its stakeholders. However, some of the Brazilian market factors, such as, organizational slack and capital resources are not as important, nevertheless, can be limitations for companies being able to achieve higher level of service and differentiation in their product range in the pursuit of sustainable innovation. Thus, the textile companies seek to take advantage of the opportunities inherent in these factors to aggregate value to its final product and production process, making it acknowledged in society and, as possible, economically more profitable.