Innovation soft and hard: Going green in Red China

Abstract

We look at cases where firms have made innovations towards sustainability. After looking at specific examples we see a new way to categorize innovation. We see two different and distinct types of innovation, types that to date have not been explored in the literature. We categorize the observed innovations as soft and hard. Sometimes innovation for sustainability starts with PEOPLE. We call this SOFT innovation. Sometimes green innovation goes hand-in-hand with technological change. We categorize these as HARD innovation. We look at firms in China and see both types.