Abstract
Research on firms’ eco-innovations – i.e. innovations in developing products or processes to avoid or reduce environmental harms, has been gaining momentum. In this paper, we use institutional and organisational imprinting theories to argue that multinational enterprises (MNEs) founded in countries with stronger institutions supporting ecological performance are more likely to carry out eco- innovations in their host subsidiaries. We also suggest that the manifestation of this imprinting effect may vary depending on the choice of establishment mode of the subsidiary (acquisition vs. greenfield) and by the subsidiaries’ host experience. We find support for our imprinting based hypothesis using a sample of foreign firms operating in Spain, spanning the 13-year period 2003-2015. We also find that for acquired subsidiaries, the imprinting effect is weaker at the acquisition point, and this effect strengthens with the post- acquisition experience.
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