Abstract
Organizations use multiple strategies to increase the number and impact of eco-innovations as a path to achieve competitive advantage. In this article, we study the role of open innovation activities, specifically related to market sources, as a driver of eco-innovation performance. While studies have looked at the relationship between these two emergent innovation phenomena from a broad perspective, we explore whether specific market knowledge sources—clients, suppliers, competitors, and consultants—and their combined use—affect eco-innovation performance. We rely on insights from theories of open innovation and sustainable and environmental innovation to build a theoretical framework about the determinants of eco-innovation performance from a market-driven open innovation perspective. Our sample consists of 3047 firm-year observations obtained from three consecutive panels of the Chilean Innovation Survey (2009–2014). We found that clients, suppliers, competitors, and consultants as knowledge sources positively influence eco-innovation performance in firms. In addition, our results suggest that a combination of client sourcing with supplier and consultant sources of knowledge positively affect eco-innovation performance. We discuss the implications of our findings for open innovation activities on eco-innovation and suggest ideas for future research.
Highlights
IntroductionThe changing and complex nature of the current business context has positioned innovation as a cornerstone of a firm’s long-term competitive advantage [1,2]
We still know little about the role of different market sources in eco-innovation performance. We address this gap by answering the following question: what market knowledge sources relate to eco-innovation performance? In so doing, we investigate the effect of individual market categories, namely clients, suppliers, competitors, and consultants [26], and explore how each might enhance organizations’ eco-innovation performance
Our findings proved that collaborating with stakeholders is important to gather knowledge—from different market-based sources—that is beneficial for eco-innovation performance, which can be translated to other types of sustainability-driven innovation [3,83]
Summary
The changing and complex nature of the current business context has positioned innovation as a cornerstone of a firm’s long-term competitive advantage [1,2]. The increasingly visible effects of climate change, the ecological aspects of infectious diseases (e.g., the Ebola and Cholera crisis in Africa and more recently the COVID-19 pandemic), the degradation of ecological systems, and the higher expectations of customers in relation to the role of business in society, have dramatically increased corporate awareness about the importance of developing innovations capable of connecting the firm’s strategy with environmental value creation [3,4]. There is growing evidence that organizations that implement environmentally-driven innovations—better known as ecoinnovations—can improve their financial performance and strengthen their competitive position (i.e., doing well by doing good) [5,6,7,8]. In order to develop stronger competitive strategies, firms—either large, medium or small—must understand what can drive successful eco-innovation
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
