This article explores how a firm's sustainability orientation influences its innovation portfolio management (IPM) outcomes, specifically affecting portfolio innovativeness and overall success.

The authors examine the mechanisms through which this orientation drives better results, focusing on portfolio innovativeness as a key intermediary factor.

The findings show that a strong sustainability orientation is positively related to portfolio innovativeness, and this innovativeness partially mediates the relationship between sustainability orientation and ultimate portfolio success. Crucially, the study highlights a significant boundary condition: the positive influence of sustainability orientation on innovativeness is stronger in manufacturing firms than in service firms.

The study is based on a cross-industry, multi-informant survey involving 115 innovation portfolios.

It provides quantitative evidence demonstrating that embedding a strong sustainability orientation into a firm's strategy, culture, and portfolio controls is connected with more innovative and, eventually, more successful innovation portfolios, thereby contributing to the debate on sustainability-driven innovation across different sectors.

The full article is available open access: here.