Effect of sustainability-oriented innovation practices on the overall organisational performance: an empirical examination

Abstract

One major means to address corporate sustainability practices in organizations are sustainability-oriented innovation practices, which tend to result in significantly improved products, services, processes or even management systems. Prior research has widely discussed the relevant issues about integrating sustainability aspects into innovation process; however, little empirical research has been conducted to analyse the link between sustainability-oriented innovation practices and the overall organizational performance. This paper addresses this gap by exploring underlying structure of sustainability-oriented innovation practices as well as their effects on the particular performance dimensions (i.e., economic performance, quality performance, innovation performance, environmental performance and social performance). The large scale web-based survey yielded 266 usable responses encompassing both the manufacturing and service industries across five countries: Germany, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia and Spain. The results of the regression analysis demonstrate that sustainability-oriented innovation practices are positively related with the overall organizational performance. The empirical evidence suggests that when organizations strongly emphasize sustainability practices they can improve both economic and non-financial performance. From a practical perspective, the findings of the study may provide a clue regarding how organizations can embed sustainability aspects in their innovation processes with the aim of improving their performance.

Environmental Regulation, Environmental Commitment, Sustainability Exploration/Exploitation Innovation, and Firm Sustainable Development

“…To address the conflict between firm development and environmental protection, proposed the theoretical frameworks of SEXPLOR and SEXPLOI based on the prior "exploration-exploitation" paradigm and sustainable development theory [40]. SEXPLOR focuses on reducing both environmental costs and material consumption over the life of product through enhancing exploratory innovation, aiming to achieve firms' sustainability and obtain future prosperity in competitive edges [40].…”

“…To address the conflict between firm development and environmental protection, proposed the theoretical frameworks of SEXPLOR and SEXPLOI based on the prior "exploration-exploitation" paradigm and sustainable development theory [40]. SEXPLOR focuses on reducing both environmental costs and material consumption over the life of product through enhancing exploratory innovation, aiming to achieve firms' sustainability and obtain future prosperity in competitive edges [40]. SEXPLOI, meanwhile, emphasizes the reduction of the use of materials, water, and energy with continuously improving production efficiency through enhancing exploitation innovation; this aims to contribute to existing competitive edges in the short-term [39].…”

Understanding Complexity: the Curvilinear Relationship Between Environmental Performance and Firm Performance

“…More recent studies that found positive relationship between EP and FP include Tarus (2015) for Kenya, Lin et al (2009) for Taiwan, Mishra and Suar (2010) for India, Hossain et al (2015) for Bangladesh, Lisi (2015) for Italy, and Maletič et al (2015) for multiple European countries (Germany, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia, and Spain). Hafez (2015) has found a weak positive (also neutral) link for the case of Egyptian banks, while Kamatra and Kartikaningdyah (2015) found a weak positive link for the case of Indonesian mining industry.…”

Supply chain management problems in the food processing industry: Implications for business performance

“…These questions were adapted from validated scales developed by Bharthvajan (2014), McAfee, Glassman and Honeycutt (2002), Choi and Harley (1996), Lee, Lee and Pennings (2001), Grover, Chopra and Mosher (2016), Thakur andHurburgh (2009), Bonner andCalantone (2005), Tsoulfas and Pappis (2006) and Steyn et al (2012). Section C measured business performance by using five questionnaire items adapted from studies by Brik, Rettab and Mellahi (2011) and Maletic et al (2015). The process of adapting these questions involved minor adjustments to the phrasing of the questions, their length and Likert-type scale configuration, in line with the recommendations by Sullivan (2011).…”