Eco-innovation Adoption in Malaysian Contractor Firms: Understanding the Components and Drivers

Siti Sarah Mat Isa,Nazirah Zainul Abidin

doi:10.5130/ajceb.v21i3.7660

Siti Sarah Mat Isa, Nazirah Zainul Abidin

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5130/ajceb.v21i3.7660

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Abstract

Eco-innovation (EI) is a concept that integrates eco-consciousness within innovation development. While EI has been widely applied in the manufacturing industry, its adoption in the construction sector remains uncertain. The rising concern of environmental impacts on construction necessitates the importance of finding more innovative ways to push environmental needs within the complexity of projects’ design and methods. Contractors hold a strategic position to promote and adopt EI into management, construction, and development. This paper explores 1) the adoption level of EI practices and 2) the relationship between the adoption of EI practices and the factors that drive EI, within the Malaysian contractor firms. A questionnaire survey was developed using 18 EI components and four driving factors. A total of 95 Grade G7 contractor firms responded to the survey. The survey revealed that the level of EI adoption in contractor firms is still at a moderate pace. The results showed that organisational EI is a crucial component that supports the firm’s eco-innovative management approach to improve firm’s environmental performance. The results indicated that all four driving factors have a positive relationship with the implementation of EI. Technology factor was identified as crucial in influencing better adoption of EI in contractor firms. Findings from this study are beneficial to develop a framework on strategies to increase the EI adoption rate among the contractor firms and deepen the understanding of EI implementation at the firm level, further extending to the project site level.

Highlights

Innovation in firms is generally regarded as the basis of business change, growth and effectiveness
These works have made essential contributions explaining the influential factors that affect the development of EI in all firms, the ways they have explicitly affected contractor firms have been scarcely discussed or analysed. It is unclear if these factors could encourage contractor firms to adopt EI practices in their business (Fernando, Wah and Shaharudin, 2016; Hazarika and Zhang, 2019). This paper addresses this gap by identifying the EI components and determining the factors that induce eco- innovative practices among Malaysian contractor firms
The empirical results from this study demonstrated the adoption of three EI components -process EI, product EI, and organisational EI, emphasising contractor firms that operate in the Malaysian construction industry

Summary

Introduction

Innovation in firms is generally regarded as the basis of business change, growth and effectiveness. It is the key to achieve a competitive advantage and ensuring business survival in a turbulent environment (Doran and Ryan, 2012). Increasing environmental pressure and support for modernisation means that innovation has become one of the primary means for firms to achieve sustainable development (Cai and Li, 2018). Merging environmental sustainability and innovative concepts would encourage innovation-led actions that prioritise environmental needs and promote new changes and improvements in construction and building projects (Hazarika and Zhang, 2019). The outcomes of such innovation are termed eco-innovation (EI)

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Conclusion