An analysis of the interplay between organizational sustainability, knowledge management, and open innovation C  atia Milena Lopes a, * , Annibal Scavarda b , Luiz Fernando Hofmeister c , Ant ^ onio M  arcio Tavares Thom  e d , Guilherme Luís Roehe Vaccaro a, e a Graduate Program in Production Engineering and Systems, UNISINOS e Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, S~ ao Leopoldo, Brazil b Graduate Program in Production Engineering, UNIRIO e Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil c Graduate Program in Regional Development, UNISC e University of Santa Cruz do Sul, Santa Cruz do Sul, Brazil d Industrial Engineering Department, PUC e Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil e Graduate Program in Business and Management, UNISINOS e Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, S~ ao Leopoldo, Brazil article info Article history: Received 1 December 2015 Received in revised form 11 October 2016 Accepted 16 October 2016 Available online 17 October 2016 Keywords: Organizational sustainability Knowledge management Open innovation Sustainable innovations abstract Organizational sustainability increasingly focuses on how to manage new knowledge of ideas and practices that can expand business. Open innovation plays a key role towards effective strategic sus- tainable management. Through open innovation, companies can leverage knowledge management to an asset that promotes sustainable innovations that influence back organizational sustainability. This paper explores the case of a Brazilian family-owned company of rubber products, operating in the sectors of health, education, and coatings, which based on organizational sustainability uses knowledge to develop open innovation aiming to promote sustainable innovations. The methodology is an exploratory single case study research based on informal observation, semi structured interviews with key informants, and focus group discussions. The case study's results explore in depth the company's experience in adopting the strategic organizational sustainability using knowledge management and open innovation to pro- mote sustainable innovations in accordance with the model of the Organization for Economic Co- operation and Development for eco-innovation, acting as a driver for significant changes in the orga- nization's culture in organizational sustainability. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Survival is the goal any organization. Under the perspective of an environment of limited resources, competitiveness arises as well as the search for new strategies for organizational sustainability (Buys et al., 2014). The concept of sustainability refers to the triple bottom-line (TBL) of environmental, social, and economic concerns of one organization, which affect present and future generations (Elkington, 1994). The incorporation of organizational sustainability in the busi- ness environment incurs into awareness of the environmental, social, and economic capitals of the enterprise (Kucukvar et al., 2014). On the one hand, it may lead to increased opportunities through governmental and consumers support. In this sense, organizational sustainability may act as a source of opportunities for companies to remain competitive (Gimenez et al., 2012). On the other hand, sustainability is still understood as an economic ex- ternality e or as a cost e infringed by effective legal enforcement (Porter and Van der Linde, 1995). In this sense, there is still lack of sufficient knowledge on how to incorporate social and environ- mental aspects in the organizational core business or how to overcome existing barriers and encouraging companies to fully deploy sustainability in business processes (Nidumolu et al., 2009). For organizational sustainability company should focus its ef- forts on knowledge management and innovation (García-  Alvarez, 2015; Gaziulusoy et al., 2013). Innovation grounded on knowl- edge and environmental, social, and economic criteria enables the creation of a sustainable basis for competitiveness in organizations (Buys et al., 2014). In other words, innovative skills generated by knowledge can play an essential role for organizational sustain- ability (Sanders and Linderman, 2014). The development of sus- tainable new products adds layers of complexity to the traditional * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: catia.milena.lopes@gmail.com (C.M. Lopes), annibal.scavarda@ unirio.br (A. Scavarda), hofmeister008@yahoo.com.br (L.F. Hofmeister), mt@puc-rio. br (A.M.T. Thom e), guilhermev@unisinos.br (G.L.R. Vaccaro). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.10.083 0959-6526/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Cleaner Production 142 (2017) 476e488