Manage Collaboration with Stakeholders to Implement Sustainability-Oriented Innovations

This research explores how firms can develop sustainable innovations while collaborating with various partners, without compromising their competitive advantage. Through a case study of Schmidt Groupe, France's leading kitchen furniture manufacturer, it examines the tensions between the need to share knowledge in order to innovate sustainably and the need to protect internal knowledge. The project is based on participant observation, internal documents, and 24 qualitative interviews conducted at different hierarchical levels. The study highlights the contributions and limitations of external collaboration in the context of sustainability-oriented innovation, particularly in the context of SMEs and mid-sized companies. The objective is to enrich the literature on sustainable innovation management and to propose a conceptual framework for arbitrating between openness and knowledge protection. This research also aims to strengthen the impact of sustainable collaborations in the service of the ecological transformation of companies.