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.
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Notes
- 1.
Clothing + socks and accessories + bed, table and bath.
- 2.
There are, in Brazil, thousands of clandestine textile sweatshops, in which under-paid employees work long and exhausting hours in dreadful conditions to mass produce garments for the country’s clothing industry. In São Paulo, the biggest Brazilian city, there is a bustling textile sector known as Bras that begun with the arrival of Jewish immigrants in the early 1900s. Today, this region is predominantly run by Koreans, though there is a notable presence of Bolivians, both legal and clandestine, some of whom are living in conditions similar to modern-day slavery. The clothes that are produced are sold to wholesalers all over the country, feeding the fifth biggest market in the world, at highly competitive prices. But to keep the prices low they outsource and the working conditions are degrading. This phenomenon goes back to the 1990s in which the Bolivians perpetuated a system of symbolic violence on to their fellow countrymen and women. The wages of Bolivian workers are standardised in a quarter of Brazilian’s minimum salary. Thousands of Bolivians prefer to settle for long arduous days, sitting at a machine in the same position, sleeping in the premises where they work. Work begins even before they eat breakfast. Besides this, they face the uncertainty of unemployment back in their home country. There are 300,000 Bolivians in São Paulo, 90% of them, according to the Labour Ministry, work in the textile industry. It is imprecise to know how many of them are modern-day slaves (Houghton 2016).
- 3.
“Some firms have tended to overemphasize short-term gains by concentrating more on quarterly results than the foundation for long-term success. Such an obsession with short-term profits is contrary to the spirit of sustainability, which requires the firm to meet the needs of its stakeholders in the future as well as today” (Dyllick and Hockerts 2002, p.132).
- 4.
“In order to achieve long-term sustainability, businesses will have to manage not only economic capital, but also their natural capital and their social capital” (Dyllick and Hockerts 2002, p.132).
- 5.
In his article, Lozano (2009) draws attention to the fact that Corporate Sustainability (CS) should not be confused with the term Sustainable Corporation (SC). SC “refers to sustaining practices and corporations that are simply long-lived (Hill and Jones 2001; Afuah 2003), or with the term ‘viable’, but not necessarily the integration of sustainable development principles.”
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Frigelg, E.L.C., Pereira, D.C., Curi, R.P. (2019). Sustainable Innovation in the Brazilian Textile Industry. In: Stehr, C., Dziatzko, N., Struve, F. (eds) Corporate Social Responsibility in Brazil. CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90605-8_18
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