Journal Article

Green technology and ecoinnovation

Bartlett, Dean, Trifilova, Anna

2010

Overview

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe seven case studies of universityindustry cooperative partnerships at Nizhny Novgorod Architecture and Civil Engineering State University in Russia. It examines the relationship between green technology and innovation in order to explore how green technologies are developed into successful ecoinnovations following the liberalisation policy which started in the 1990s in the Russian research and development R&D sector. Designmethodologyapproach The research adopts a casestudy approach and conducts crosscase comparative analyses in order to develop insights into the evolution of green technology projects in what was formerly a closed area Gorky city prior to the market reforms. Findings The technical empirical data included in the cases illustrate how ecoinnovations can arise incrementally from highly structured technical problem spaces, in contradiction with previously published literature which has tended to treat them as more creative and radical innovations arising from the design process. The paper proposes an emergent tentative taxonomy of ecoinnovations based on the findings of crosscase analysis. Finally, the paper suggests a need to develop the aptitude of the various actors involved in such projects in order to successfully bring them to market. Research limitationsimplications While the findings are not necessarily generalisable to other regions, they suggest that the Russian context may require a more sophisticated, multilevel analysis of the organisation and management of international manufacturing technology collaborations. Originalityvalue The paper presents seven original case studies of green R&D and describes an emergent taxonomy of ecoinnovations.

• Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited
• Subject: Innovation / Manufacturing industries / Partnership / Russia / Universities