SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION: A PERSPECTIVE OF COMPARATIVE INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL LITERATURE

Abstract

Innovation is one of the main factors that positively influence the competitiveness and the economic development. Sustainable innovation is presented as an alternative to building a new low-carbon economy, aimed at the sustainable development and the viability of initiatives focusing on mitigation and adaptation of environmental impacts, especially those related to climate change. The aim of this study was to conduct a literature review on sustainable innovation. The bibliometric method was used in order to map and identify the relevant scientific production in that field. The international academic production in the period between 2008 and April 2013 and the Brazilian academic production until June 2014 were analyzed. The major results include the lack of standardized terminology and conceptual consensus on sustainable innovation, the incipient Brazilian production and the fact that journals from Netherlands and the United States concentrate the highest production volume on the subject. The major contribution of the study are: to assist scholars with a state-of-art literature review on sustainable innovation, and highlight the importance to consider relevant authors and journals that are in the frontier of the knowledge to conduct researches on sustainable innovation. The results allow establishing deepening layers to analyze the citations and academic connections, including the relationship and connection between the authors' productivity and co-authorship.