The demand for innovative approaches applied to productive sectors is a reality present in the circular economy and open innovation is a relatively new concept that has revolutionized the literature about innovation management. Since the concept appeared in 2003, many articles have focused on its development and application. Although some studies have connected open innovation with sustainability, the relevance of this current on the global literature about open innovation is still unidentified. In this context, this paper tries to cover this gap with a bibliometric analysis focused on the evolution of the open innovation paradigm and the relevance of sustainability in this field of research. A sample of 3087 papers published between 2003 and 2019 in the Scopus database was obtained. The analysis revealed the main topics and the most prolific journals, authors, institutions, and countries, in terms of productivity, citations, and h-indexes. Besides of these contributions, keywords analysis reveals that, in recent years, sustainability and ecosystems are decisive variables in open innovation research.

Facing worldwide environmental and social concerns, manufacturing firms are trying to adopt effective environmentally friendly actions to mitigate their environmental impacts. Although the existent literature has provided many insights about the drivers of sustainable product innovation, little is known about the impact of firm growth. Thus, we intend to contribute to this gap in the literature by examining the impact that firm growth can have on sustainable product innovation. To achieve this goal, the partial least square (PLS) modeling technique was used to analyze a dataset of 3250 manufacturing firms from 39 different countries. The results reveal that firm growth exerts a positive effect on sustainable product innovation and that the relationship is partially mediated by the adoption of environmental practices. The findings also indicate that managerial barriers lessen the effectiveness of the adoption of environmental practices in facilitating the development of sustainable product innovation, while improving labor conditions increases it. However, operational barriers do not exert a significant moderating effect between the adoption of environmental practices and sustainable product innovation. These results prompt interesting insights related to theory development in environmental management and sustainable product innovation research.

The most common form of horizontal collaboration within the airline industry is code‐sharing, which provides firms with many economic and operational benefits, although what happens in the environmental area is less certain. How should companies address code‐sharing to contribute to sustainability? The main objective of this work is to analyse the impact that this type of horizontal collaboration can have on the environmental performance of airlines. From this, we propose that network ambidexterity—the ability to balance exploration with new partners and exploitation with prior partners—is an adequate strategy to solve agency problems derived from collaboration practices to achieve environmental outcomes. Using hierarchical regression analysis, our results reinforce code‐sharing as a critical resource for the improvement of environmental performance and identify the moderating role of network ambidexterity in the impact of alliances on environmental performance.

Global alliances have traditionally been related to improvements in the economic and operational performances of companies, particularly in the airline industry. However, we still do not know the effect of the participation in this kind of multilateral agreement on the environmental performance of airlines. The main aim of this work is to analyze whether the alliance membership of airlines has an effect upon their environmental performance, and if so, whether or not the characteristics of the global alliance, as well as the business model of the airline, may influence this relation to a greater or lesser extent. The results of regression and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) in a sample of 252 airlines (58 included in one of the three global alliances: Star Alliance, Oneworld, and SkyTeam) show a strong and inverse relationship between environmental performance and belonging to an alliance. The paper also shows empirical evidence of the influence of the business model of the airline on environmental performance. These results suggest important implications for managers facing challenges regarding sustainability.