Enacting corporate humanistic management through sustainable development innovation

To extend our knowledge on how companies enact humanistic management we examined the nature and purpose of sustainable development innovation which companies reported through published sources. Using a positivist qualitative methodology based on a modified inductive categorical documentary analysis, we gathered data from 33 companies at two points in time (2009 and 2014) to identify and classify how companies integrate care for society and the environment into actions. Findings show that companies almost exclusively reported continuous improvements to exploit existing products, services, and/or processes rather than radical changes through bringing new products, services, and/or processes to the market. We categorized sustainable development innovation along two dimensions: technological versus social and incremental versus radical innovation. This framework may help practitioners and academics to better understand and foster rationales and schemas which promote corporate humanistic management.