Unpacking productive dialogues as building blocks of dynamic capabilities for sustainability-oriented innovation

Firms are increasingly pursuing Sustainability-Oriented Innovation (SOI) in response to stakeholder and regulatory pressures. Achieving SOI depends on dynamic capabilities (DCs)—the abilities to sense, seize, and transform. Although previous research highlights the role of productive dialogues in enabling DCs, it has focused primarily on intrafirm interactions and emphasized dialogue quality over content, overlooking the importance of interorganizational exchanges. This study addresses these gaps through a qualitative case study of four European manufacturing firms. We identify three types of productive dialogues—with external stakeholders, within the supply chain and within the organization—that support different phases of the SOI process. Each type centers on specific issues and contributes uniquely to sensing, seizing, and transforming. Our findings refine the concept of productive dialogue by explicitly focusing on interfirm dialogues, the contents of these dialogues, and the necessary outcomes of these dialogues to foster SOI.