When Being Large Is Not an Advantage: How Innovation Impacts the Sustainability of Firm Performance in Natural Resource Industries (2025)

Advanced environmental management and innovation: A theoretical framework

Handbook of Sustainability Management , 2012

Environmental impact, a consequence of ever-increasing industrial activities around the globe, is a growing problem in the world. Firms actively engaging in green innovation can not only minimize production waste but also increase their corporate reputation and legitimacy while satisfying stakeholders’ demands. In this chapter, we provide a theoretical review of the impact that environmental innovation has on firms’ ability to sustain a competitive advantage. We summarize the environmental management literature’s most important findings relating to firms’ innovation capabilities over the last several decades. In addition, we consider the strategic potential of environmental innovation, explaining how it constitutes a potential source of competitive advantage. Next, we point out a set of important determinants of environmental innovation, focusing on environmental regulations and then analyzing several firm-specific features that may also determine the effectiveness of environmental innovations (a firm’s strategic orientation, competencies and network relations). Finally, we summarize our conclusions, propose future lines of research and provide managers and policy-makers with evidence of the increasing importance of firms’ environmental innovation capabilities for protecting the natural environment.

Environmental Innovation and Firm Performance: How Firm Size and Motives Matter

Sustainability, 2019

There is limited understanding of the precise circumstances under which environmental actions-such as environmental innovation-contribute to firm performance. Building on the resource-based view and on stakeholder theory, this study argues that the general positive effect of environmental innovation on financial performance varies significantly with firm size and the motives underlying a firm's engagement in environmental innovation. Integrating survey data and lagged annual account data on 1761 Flemish companies, we find that larger firms benefit financially from environmental innovation driven by regulation or industry codes of conduct, while smaller firms benefit from environmental innovation introduced in response to customer demand. While it is increasingly accepted that environmental innovation relates positively with firm performance, the current study highlights important boundary conditions of this relationship.

The Impact of External Financial Factors on the Effect of Ecological Innovation on Small and Medium-Sized Businesses Performance, Capacity for the Sustainability Economy

Qlantic journal of social sciences and humanities, 2024

Eco-innovation has been viewed as a tool for protecting the environment since the 1990s. The impact of external financial factors on eco-innovation is expected to reduce waste, air pollution, and the use of materials and resources. However, the effect of eco-innovation on economic and environmental performance has received little attention. More specifically, since the 1990s, eco-innovation has begun to be viewed as a tool to protect the environment. Eco-innovations are expected to reduce waste, air pollution, and the use of materials and resources. However, the impact of eco-innovation on financial and environmental performance has received little attention. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can function better, thanks in large part to the social fabric of the organization. In addition, there is a positive correlation between eco-innovation and GSCM, and these concepts significantly affect the development of CE capabilities. Our last conjecture shows a critical link between GSCM and CE skills. Our findings suggest that relationships between ideas for overarching design are more difficult to establish through more direct or indirect management of multiple tiers of suppliers and that major companies are expanding in ways that are likely to promote sustainability while bringing in sizeable New research questions.

Eco-Innovation and Firm Performance: Evidence from South America

Sustainability

Eco-innovation has received a great deal of attention in academia and the business sector because it promotes a firm’s sustainable development and seeks to improve its performance. The prime objective of this study was to analyze the effect of the process, organization, and product eco-innovation on the company’s financial and environmental performance. Using a structural equation model estimated by maximum likelihood and a sample from 214 South American manufacturing companies in Colombia, Ecuador, and Perú, we found that organizational eco-innovation (OE) and process eco-innovation (PCE) are positively and significantly associated with the firm’s environmental and financial performance. In contrast, product eco-innovation (PDE) is not significantly associated with the two types of performance described. Likewise, OE has a significant and positive indirect influence on PDE, environmental performance, and financial performance. These findings suggest that OE and PCE positively affec...

Environmental Innovation and Firm Profitability – An Analysis with Respect to Firm Size

SSRN Electronic Journal

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Relationship Between Innovation and Sustainable Performance

International Journal of Innovation Management, 2016

Economic activities, and more intensely the business environment, are being pressured to direct their actions towards sustainable performance, more specifically in its social and environmental facets. One of the alternatives to deal with these pressures is innovation. In this paper, we present results of a study conducted on the electrical and electronics industry operating in Brazil in order to examine the relationship between innovation and sustainable performance. The methodology adopted was the strategy of cross-sectional survey, conducted in 112 electrical and electronic manufacturing companies of all sizes and from all regions of Brazil. Data analysis was carried out mainly through Cronbach’s Alpha reliability analysis of scales, descriptive analysis of measures, and especially cluster analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The main results categorise the companies into more sustainable, less sustainable and relatively sustainable, according to their performance profiles. ...

Sustainability and Corporate Innovation

Business, Management and Economics

Sustainable development is one of the prominent goals promoted by the United Nations (UN) and identifies innovation as one of the important elements. Therefore, sustainable development is a combination of both developmental and environmental imperatives through innovation, implying a new way of science incorporating the technology integration and social philosophy. This chapter discusses how sustainability creates business opportunities and be counted toward the future investment for the firms. It is the path leading from creative thinking and corporate innovation. Thus, the relationship between corporate innovation and sustainability plays a vital role for firms to gain competitive advantages such as gaining value creation, creating cooperation value with the stakeholders, tapping into new markets and customer segments, and creating a transformational solution. Firms can be sustainable not only by profit maximization, but also address the maximization of the interests’ stakeholders...

The mediating role of environmental innovation in the relationship between environmental management and firm performance in a multi-stakeholder environment

Nowadays, firms are increasingly challenged to bridge potentially conflicting economic interests of primary commercial stakeholders and sustainability demands from secondary non-commercial stakeholder groups. While a number of firms view investments in environmental management as disconnected from their value-creating activities, others have reported achieved cost efficiency and differentiation advantages. Prior research suggests that environmental innovation might be the missing link between environmental management and firm performance. However, the mediating effect of environmental innovation in the relationship between environmental management and a firm’s performance had not been empirically tested so far. Our paper provides a contribution by conducting an empirical investigation into this possible mediating effect. Although the presumed mediating role of environmental innovation suggests that it is influenced by internal environmental management, environmental innovation literature is especially concerned with the role of external stakeholders in environmental innovation. This study investigates the role of the engagement of stakeholders such as supply chain partners, industry, and public authorities in environmental impact reduction. We hypothesise that environmental innovation positively mediates the relationship between environmental management and firm performance, and that the engagement of stakeholders has a positive impact on environmental innovation. The research model was tested with a variance-based structural equation model using data from 90 Dutch food and beverage firms. The results confirm the positive mediating effect of environmental process innovation on the relationship between environmental management and cost efficiency advantage. Environmental product innovation contributes to a differentiation advantage but it is not significantly influenced by environmental management. So we could not support a positive mediating effect of environmental product innovation on the relationship between environmental management and differentiation advantage. Instead, environmental collaboration with supply chain partners has a strong positive impact on environmental product innovation. It also positively influences environmental process innovation but this influence is much weaker than the influence of internal environmental management. Our findings can assist managers in their decision making regarding the implementation of environmental innovations and environmental collaboration with external parties. The study is also relevant to policy makers as a tool to assess the appropriateness of their policy.

Managing Corporate Resources for Competitive and Profitable Eco-Innovations

2000

1 Abstract A large number of innovations that were inspired by the principal of ecological sustainability have reached the market over the past decades. While many have only been a small market success a significant part of these innovations has generated durable above-average growth and profitability. This article aims to analyse the reasons for the success of these" eco-leaders" from a resource-based perspective.

Environmental innovation and financial performance: the moderating effect of motives and firm size

Proceedings - Academy of Management, 2013

There is limited understanding of the precise circumstances under which environmental actions-such as environmental innovation-contribute to firm performance. Building on the resource-based view and on stakeholder theory, this study argues that the general positive effect of environmental innovation on financial performance varies significantly with firm size and the motives underlying a firm's engagement in environmental innovation. Integrating survey data and lagged annual account data on 1761 Flemish companies, we find that larger firms benefit financially from environmental innovation driven by regulation or industry codes of conduct, while smaller firms benefit from environmental innovation introduced in response to customer demand. While it is increasingly accepted that environmental innovation relates positively with firm performance, the current study highlights important boundary conditions of this relationship.