How Does Open Innovation Modify the Relationship between Environmental Regulations and Productivity?

With increasingly severe environmental regulations, a pressing issue has been the need for firms to develop efficient strategies to achieve environmental protection and high productivity. Several environmental experts argue that firms can respond to environmental regulations through innovation; however, the question of how to innovate is unanswered in the environmental literature. Therefore, this study focuses on the open innovation strategy approach to respond to environmental regulations and maintain high productivity by incorporating the idea of innovation management. We first divide open innovation strategy into two modes of external technology acquisition: foreign and domestic. Next, we examine these modes' mediation effects on environmental regulations and productivity. In addition, we test the moderating effect of internal R&D on the relationship between external technology acquisition and productivity. Using data on 35 Chinese industrial sectors from 2001 to 2010, the empirical findings show that foreign technology significantly and positively mediates the link between environmental regulations and productivity, while domestic technology does not. Internal R&D investment, as an absorptive capacity, positively moderates the effect of foreign technology; however, it negatively moderates the effect of domestic technology on productivity. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Market Orientation and FIRMS' Environmental Innovation: The Moderating Role of Environmental Attitude

Drawing on market orientation theory, innovation theory and the theory of reasoned action, this paper integrates market orientation, environmental attitude and firms' environmental innovation into a model to establish a relationship among these three variables. By taking 247 manufacturing firms in China as the research sample and by analyzing the data using SPSS19.0, we found that customer and competitor orientation have a significant and positive impact on firms' environmental innovation, while the effect of inter‐functional coordination is not significant. Furthermore, environmental attitude plays a positive moderating role between customer orientation and firms' environmental innovation, as well as between competitor orientation and firms' environmental innovation. Finally, the results of the study are discussed, and the theoretical and practical significance of this study is clarified further. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

环境成本内在化对我国纺织行业出口贸易的影响

我国纺织行业的比较优势是依靠未完全实现环境成本内在化而实现的,如果贸易各国实行环境成本内在化,那么我国纺织出口部门的比较优势将发生改变。环境成本内在化影响了各国贸易竞争力,改变了出口商品的比较优势。基于以上考虑,文章以纺织行业为例,运用ADF检验、协整关系检验、Granger因果检验得出结论:出口规模的扩大增加了环境污染的排放;通过建立多元线性回归模型验证了环境成本量化以后,环境成本对国际贸易竞争力的影响是负的,即环境成本越大,国际贸易竞争力就越小。     

Is environmental innovation conducive to corporate financing? The moderating role of advertising expenditures

Environmental innovation is an important way for firms to achieve sustainable development and acquire resources. Based on the stakeholder, resource dependence, and signal transmission theories, this study divided environmental innovation into substantive and strategic eco‐innovation and constructed a relationship model among environmental innovation, advertising expenditures, and corporate financing. Selecting 162 Chinese manufacturing listed companies from 2012 to 2017 as the research sample and adopting the multiple regression analysis method, the study found that substantive eco‐innovation had a positive effect on corporate financing, but strategic eco‐innovation had a significant negative effect on corporate financing. Further, advertising expenditures played a positive moderating role between substantive eco‐innovation, strategic eco‐innovation, and corporate financing. The robustness test further confirmed these results.     

环境规制对区域创新能力的空间溢出效应

环境规制一方面提高了企业的进入门槛,降低竞争程度,减缓企业从事技术创新,另一方面则提高了企业生产成本和市场获取成本,对技术进步提出了更高的要求。基于我国地级市数据,基于地理距离权重,利用空间计量回归模型分析、识别其空间溢出机制,提出可行的环境规制政策建议。     

Green innovation to respond to environmental regulation: How external knowledge adoption and green absorptive capacity matter?

Although environmental regulations have been considered as important forces of conducting green innovation, how and under what conditions they affect green innovation are still unclear. Drawing from institutional theory, this study used survey data from 237 manufacturing firms in China to investigate how two dimensions of environmental regulations (i.e., command and control regulation and market‐based regulation) affect green product innovation and green process innovation. Further, this article examined the mediating role of external knowledge adoption and the moderating role of green absorptive capacity. Our results indicate that both command and control regulation and market‐based regulation have positive influences on external knowledge adoption. External knowledge adoption fully mediates these positive relationships. In addition, green absorptive capacity only strengthens the positive impact of market‐based regulation on external knowledge adoption. Our study contributes to institutional theory and green innovation literature.     

环境规制对我国产业国际竞争力影响分析

随着贸易和投资的发展,贸易与环境的冲突问题日益受到广泛关注。采用环境标准、措施,作为治理、改善环境的手段,会对一国的产业竞争力造成影响。运用环境-竞争力矩阵,分析了环境规制对我国产业国际竞争力的影响,并对我国的环境规制提出了建议。     

Innovation Capacity and the Implementation of Eco‐innovation: Toward a Contingency Perspective

This study develops a framework by drawing on the perspectives of contingency theory to investigate how innovation capacity affects eco‐innovation. The examination covers four moderators, including customer requirement, export destination, environmental regulation and government subsidy, and focuses on the types of eco‐innovation concerning pollution and waste. A sample of 2964 manufacturing firms from the Taiwanese Technological Innovation Survey is utilized to test the hypotheses. A moderated hierarchical logit method is adopted to analyze the data. The results overall suggest that the effect of innovation capacity on eco‐innovation depends on the levels of the four moderators. Specifically, the results show that innovation capacity has different effects on eco‐innovation when customers have a demand for eco‐innovation, export markets have high environmental awareness, future environmental regulations are expected, and the government provides a subsidy for environmental innovation. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

The effect of environmental regulations,top management commitment,and organizational learning on green product innovation: Evidence from automobile industry

This paper proposes and empirically examines a model to investigate the effect of environmental regulations, top management commitment (TMCO) and organizational learning toward green product innovation (GPI). The proposed theoretical model, grounded in dynamic capabilities view (DCV) and upper echelons theory, is analyzed by Partial least squares (PLS) method using the data from Indian automotive manufacturing firms. The findings indicate the importance of TMCO and organizational learning for implementing GPI (in response to regulations), and achieve desired performance. Further, organizational learning fully mediates between commitment of top management and GPI. The findings can be useful for managers in automotive manufacturing firms who are interested toward implementing GPI. The paper contributes to green innovation literature by empirically examining the role of TMCO and organizational learning for GPI.     

Environmental Regulation and Enterprise Innovation: A Review

The impact of environmental regulation on enterprise innovation is closely related to the competitiveness of the enterprise and sustainable development of the regional economy, but existing research does not provide a consistent view. This paper summarizes the impacts of environmental regulation on enterprise innovation from the perspectives of technological innovation, product innovation, system innovation and ecological innovation. We find that the impacts of environmental regulation on enterprise innovation behaviour are complex, and that the impacts can be reflected together by the four aspects above and even by their interaction. Moreover, the impacts are not limited to the creation of new technologies, products, and systems but also include their adoption and application. In particular, whether the Porter hypothesis is true and which versions of the Porter hypothesis environmental regulation causes in enterprise innovation depend on enterprise characteristics, means of environmental regulation, and enterprises' strategic behaviours in an enterprise ecosystem. Finally, we propose five potential research directions: quantifying the degree of enterprise innovation caused by environmental regulation, the impacts of environmental regulation on sustainable economic development from an enterprise ecosystem perspective, the impacts of enterprise innovation on environmental regulation, the role of enterprise initiative in the relationship between environmental regulation and enterprise innovation, and social security issues and the integration of eliminated enterprises resulting from environmental regulation.     

Enhancing green product and process innovation: Towards an integrative framework of knowledge acquisition and environmental investment

Despite the increasing interest in green innovation literature, little is known on how and under what conditions firms' knowledge transfer activities affect green innovation. There is lack of research that on how particular organizational capabilities are seen more useful and how it influences on green innovation performance. To address this research gap, we examine a mediation model in which we explore whether a firm's knowledge acquisition capability and investment in environmental management mediate the impact of buyer-driven knowledge transfer activities on green product innovation and green process innovation. On the basis of an analysis of a sample of 239 manufacturing firms, we find that buyer-driven knowledge activities have a greater positive impact on green product innovation than green process innovation. Investment in environmental management fully mediates the relationship between buyer-driven knowledge transfer activities and green process innovation, and knowledge acquisition capability partially mediates the relationship between buyer-driven knowledge transfer activities and green product innovation. The current study provides evidence that internal competencies and the role of buyers in knowledge transfer are critical for explaining the green product innovation and green process innovation. Our results suggest that buyer involvement pushes firms to develop resource acquisition capability to enhance green product innovation. Our results also highlight the importance of investment in environmental management for overcoming the environmental challenges in the manufacturing firms.     

Does Innovation Drive Environmental Disclosure? A New Insight into Sustainable Development

Sustainable development is a hot topic in business and the media, and there is a growing demand for reliable environmental disclosure from a wide range of stakeholders. Ethical performance, including social and environmental performance, is actively scrutinized. A firm's stakeholders expect reliable disclosure to correctly assess its performance. Research on the link between environmental disclosure and environmental performance shows mixed results. Both a positive and a negative association have been found. This study reexamines this association by considering environmental innovation as a key determinant of environmental disclosure. We find that environmental performance and environmental innovation jointly determine environmental disclosure. At low levels of environmental performance, innovative firms tend to disclose more than their non‐innovative counterparts to inform stakeholders about their innovation and strategy to obtain an improved environmental performance. This disclosure gap tends to diminish as innovative firms become better environmental performers. The higher levels of environmental disclosure are closely associated with firms' environmental performance for both groups. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

法律法规贯穿于环境管理体系建立始终

指出遵守环境法律法规是环境管理体系的一项核心承诺。介绍了遵守法律法规贯穿于环境方针、目标指标和方案及合规性评价等标准条款中。部分体系条款围绕着法律法规要求形成了一个新的PDCA运行模式。     

What drives environmental innovation? A meta-analysis

To clarify the drivers of environmental innovation, this study selected 50 independent samples from 49 publications to investigate the effects of four major factors—policy, market, resource capacity, and organizational characteristics—on environmental innovation using a meta-analysis, as well as demonstrating the moderating role of cultural background and industrial diversity. The results show that both environmental regulations and government subsidies positively promote environmental innovation and that cultural background and industrial diversity do play moderating roles in how environmental regulations impact environmental innovation. Furthermore, customer demand is also shown to have a positive impact on environmental innovation and is moderated by industrial diversity. However, market concentration is not shown to significantly affect environmental innovation. The results also show that knowledge sources, technological capabilities, organization's performance, and environmental management systems positively influence environmental innovation. Additionally, cultural background plays a moderating role between an organization's performance and environmental innovation, and industrial diversity can moderate technological capability and environmental innovation. Finally, the size of an organization is shown to positively affect environmental innovation and is also moderated by cultural background.     

技术创新对环境污染影响的研究

论文基于2003-2017年中国31个省级面板数据,实证检验了技术创新水平对中国环境污染的影响。论文运用空间杜宾模型进行回归分析,结果表明环境污染具有空间正相关性,本省和邻近省份技术创新水平的提升会降低本省的环境污染程度。为此,企业应继续加强技术创新水平的提升,提高能源的利用效率,改善环境污染问题。     

Do environmental regulations hamper small enterprises' market entry? Evidence from China

Due to the serious increase of environmental pollution in China, environmental regulations have become significantly stringent. Such regulations are playing an increasingly important role in the development of small enterprises (SEs) in China, especially in SEs' market entry. However, existing studies pay little attention to this issue. This paper investigates for the first time the effect of environmental regulations on SEs' market entry and the mechanism of environmental regulation effects in China. We consider two sets of panel data for the periods 2003–2010 and 2012–2015 in China. We also use the fixed effect model and the instrumental variable method to explore the role of environmental regulations in SEs' market entry. The results show that, overall, environmental regulations play a significantly positive and robust role in SEs' market entry. However, the mechanisms associated with the effect of environmental regulations on different innovative types of SEs differ. Environmental regulations promote the market entry of SEs with product innovation, but this impact is not significant for SEs with research and development (R&D) activities and R&D institutions. Our findings indicate that China's SEs prefer product innovation, which is a lower level innovative type, over R&D innovation, as a means to avoid the negative impact of stringent environmental regulations.     

Can voluntary environmental regulation promote corporate technological innovation?

The impact of environmental regulation on technological innovation has been widely discussed in the academic circle. Based on the panel data of 403 Chinese manufacturing firms from 2010 to 2015, this paper explored the role of voluntary environmental regulation in technological innovation. The results showed the following: First, both voluntary environmental information disclosure and environmental management system certification had a positive effect on corporate innovation investment. Second, compared with the impact of environmental information disclosure, the impact of environmental management system certification on corporate innovation investment was more significant. Third, there was a significant positive interaction between environmental information disclosure and environmental management system certification. Finally, the effect of voluntary environmental regulation on corporate technological innovation in heavily polluting industries was stronger than that in lightly polluting industries.     

Does gender diversity matter for green innovation?

This study empirically investigated the relationship between board gender diversity and firm's green innovation, using panel data of public companies of China's manufacturing. Green product innovation was assessed by “green” patents and green process innovation assessed by environmental management certification. The endogeneity problem that resulted from self‐selection of gender diversity was addressed by means of extended probit regressions with an instrumental variable, and the instrumental variable was elaborately constructed based on changes in directorships. The findings show that occurrence of green innovation at the firm‐level is systematically related to female board representation. Specifically, women can exert a sizable and positive effect on green innovation, once they enjoy at least two seats on the boards; a further increase in representation of women on the boards can increase the likelihood of green product innovation rather than the likelihood of green process innovation. These results were robust to various regression specifications and alternative samples. The study provides empirical evidence that women at the top management can play a positive role in developing firm's active environmental strategies, and the conclusions are of practical implications for improving corporate governance along the environmental dimension.     

Environmental management systems and environmental product innovation: The role of stakeholder engagement

Environmental product innovation (EPI) is an imperative for contemporary business as it enhances firm competitiveness and provides significant societal benefits. Arguments that the use of environmental management systems—such as ISO 14001—may enhance EPI have not been empirically supported. In this study, we argue that the environmental management systems–EPI relationship is contingent upon the level of a firm's engagement with three groups of stakeholders, namely, suppliers, customers, and the local community. Using a sample of 1,314 manufacturing firms for the period 2003 and 2014, we find empirical evidence that supports our hypothesis for all three groups of stakeholders. Further analysis reveals that for firms with prior experience with quality management systems, engagement with local communities becomes the critical condition. We discuss the implications of these results for both theory and practice.