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Disruption or Sustenance? An Institutional Analysis of the Sustainable Business Network in West Michigan

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Facilitating Sustainable Innovation through Collaboration

Abstract

Sustainable regional development is understood as a process characterized by continuing attention to lasting economic prosperity which supports healthy ecological and human communities within a defined spatial area. This preliminary research focuses on disruptive innovation network structures and institutional arrangements that are essential theoretical components for sustainability. The presumption is that by better understanding the characteristics of networks that support innovation, we may more effectively leverage sustainable business practices toward an effort to foster sustainable regional development. Network theory and institutional offers a way to illuminate some of the existing network nodes and institutions supporting sustainable business practices in West Michigan (USA) and identifying ways that learning associated with these practices might be harnessed in the service of sustainable regional development. Network centrality, reachability and connectivity are explored.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In fact, Christensen’s use of the term ‘sustaining’ also refers to the continuing viability of a firm.

  2. 2.

    Vincent Ostrom’s definition of a polycentric order as noted in Ostrom and Janssen (2002) is particularly useful. He described this order as one ‘where many elements are capable of making mutual adjustments for ordering their relationships with one another within a general system of rules where each element acts with independence of other elements’ (V. Ostrom, 1999, p. 57).

  3. 3.

    The IAD framework was originally developed by Elinor and Vincent Ostrom, along with numerous colleagues associated with the Indiana University Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis. It continues to be refined as a result of its extensive use in helping to address a wide range of research questions.

  4. 4.

    The Center for Sustainability at Aquinas College serves as an outreach and research center in support of sustainable business and community sustainability. Some support for this effort was provided through the Community Sustainability Partnership, which was established to provide assistance to the City of Grand Rapids and Grand Rapids Public Schools. Aquinas College was one of five founding partners of the CSP.

  5. 5.

    The concept of ‘civic venture capital’ was brought to the author’s attention by Mr. Milt Rohwer, President of the Grand Rapids-based Frey Foundation.

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Acknowledgments

The author gratefully acknowledges the research assistance of Aquinas undergraduate students Kalee Mockridge, Colin Knue and Chris Jacob, as well as the assistance of Calvin College colleague Gail Heffner, Ph.D., who helped with the facilitation of the cognitive mapping of West Michigan’s sustainability landscape by participants at the October 2007 ‘summit’ of the Community Sustainability Partnership. It is also noted that the author is actively involved in a variety of sustainability and sustainable business efforts in the West Michigan community and draws upon information and insights derived from those experiences in this research.

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  1. Department of Sustainable Business, Aquinas College, Grand Rapids, MI, 49506, USA

    Deborah M. Steketee

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  1. Clark University, Main Street 950, Worcester, 01610-1477, USA

    Joseph Sarkis

  2. College at Brockport, State University of New York, Brockport, New Campus Drive 350, Brockport, 14420-2914, USA

    James J. Cordeiro

  3. ESRC Centre for Business Relationships,, Accountability, Sustainability &, Cardiff University, Park Place 55, Cardiff, CF10 3AT, United Kingdom

    Diego Vazquez Brust

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Steketee, D.M. (2010). Disruption or Sustenance? An Institutional Analysis of the Sustainable Business Network in West Michigan. In: Sarkis, J., Cordeiro, J., Vazquez Brust, D. (eds) Facilitating Sustainable Innovation through Collaboration. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3159-4_8

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