Abstract
This paper examines how Situational Awareness (SA) mechanisms influence innovation readiness and organizational adaptability during the early, pre-implementation stages of hydrogen (H2) integration in energy-intensive industries. Drawing on a qualitative case study within the EU project H2GLASS, and focusing on the metal sector, the H2 shift is conceptualized as a systemic innovation requiring new competencies, safety routines, and organizational responses. In-depth interviews with operators and managers across three companies reveal how employees perceive and interpret unfamiliar risks, build trust, and balance control and flexibility under uncertainty. The findings show that innovation readiness is enabled or constrained in different ways across the cases, depending on how employees interpret unfamiliar technologies, re-frame established routines, and coordinate responses across organizational boundaries. Readiness emerges not only from technical competence but also from adaptive problem-solving, opportunity recognition, and tolerance for ambiguity. These human and organizational dynamics are central to innovation in socio-technical transitions. The study contributes by extending the application of SA into industrial sustainability transitions and showing its relevance across the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of transition. Most clearly, however, the findings speak to the social dimension, demonstrating how SA supports workforce readiness, collaborative learning, trust, and coordinated action during disruptive change. Insights have transdisciplinary relevance for workforce learning, leadership, and policy, and position SA as both a cognitive and organizational capability for supporting strategic agility and the adoption of sustainable technologies in established industries.