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Sustainable development has first been perceived as a hindrance to economic growth. Today, the opposition between innovation and sustainable development is less evident. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential complementarities that could emerge between innovation strategies and sustainable development.

As a conceptual paper, this article aims at developing propositions.

Sustainable development constitutes a new data of the macro‐environmental context, likely to modify the competing industries and systems in which companies evolve. In return, they represent many opportunities that companies can seize to model their strategies. Within the framework of such an approach, innovation and sustainable development constitute engines of development which can get connected and virtuously feed themselves.

Because of the chosen research approach, the results lack generalisability. Therefore, academics are encouraged to further test the propositions developed in the article.

Strategies, and their translation at the organisational level, integrating SD, may provide both a source of competitive advantage for companies and an enhancement of their commitment to society.

The practices described in the article are aiming at stimulating the innovation of collaborators, in order to integrate the principles of sustainable development within the company.

This paper fills a literature gap regarding the study of how managers can take sustainable development into account to build their strategies.

The european market deregulation involves administrative barriers disparition. According american neo‐classic theory, all firm will be able to act in an economic sector under the condition of rentability. Thus the european air transport sector is concerned by such evolution. All air freedom issued from the convention of Chicago are abolished. Any firm can get an air transport licence under the condition of satisfying security and financial rules. Three strategic ways could be choseen by this new actors: Confrontation, Cooperation and the concentration on unexploited commercial services.

Looks at the changes in management science methodology brought about by other fields of knowledge and how this has influenced the views of researchers. Draws the main lessons to be learned from this and thus paves the way for direct observation. Develops a set of prerequisites for in‐company observation which are capable of providing valid insights for management sciences. Concludes that the advantage of such an approach is researchers receive a greater realism and depth to their study of organisational practices which in turn makes the resulting methodology more useable in practice.