Author(s): Devanny Gumulya, John Purba, Evo Hariandja, Rudy Pramono
The study was initiated because there are many creative social enterprises in Indonesia that have low innovation activities. In order to be innovative, a company must understand how to build its innovation capability. Meanwhile, there are three Indonesia CSEs who are innovative and have won recognition from UNDP for their sustainable innovation. Hence, this research tries to investigate how these three CSEs founded their innovation capability through a qualitative multi-case study approach to provide a comprehensive explanation of how innovation capability is implemented in a CSE context. This research has proposed, based on literature and empirical studies, that innovation capability for sustainability can be built from five determinants, namely: sustainable entrepreneurial orientation, vision and strategy, external network, knowledge and skill development, and resource management. It is suggested that companies that consciously and explicitly develop and invest in these determinants of innovation capability along with developing their organizational empathy will have a higher likelihood of achieving a balanced performance between profit, people, and the planet. The study also discovered that empathy play a significant role moderating sustainable entrepreneurial orientation and vision and strategy. Aside from the identification of how innovation capability for sustainability is formulated, the research also identifies three sub-capabilities that are created from the determinants: green R&D capability, sensing capability, and community empowerment capability.