Unfolding heterogeneity: The different policy drivers of different eco-innovation modes

On the growth impact of different eco-innovation business strategies

“…The detailed analysis of the different EI trajectories across quantiles highlights the growth advantage of firms following the Pollution-reducing EI mode, whose related coefficient, differently from other EI modes, remains highly statistically significant (p < 0.05) for most quantiles. Being largely achieved through incremental innovation activities associated with lower technical risk (Aghion et al, 2009 ; Cuerva et al, 2014 ) and little investment efforts (De Marchi & Grandinetti, 2013 ), this mode turns out to be the simplest one if environmental regulations are to be fulfilled (Caravella & Crespi, 2020a ; Horbach, 2008 ; Veugelers, 2012 ). For these reasons, it may be easily introduced by slower firms as well as by fast-growing companies.…”

“…Through these new lenses, EI innovation is seen as a multiform process made up of a variety of potential patterns and purposes that depend on a plurality of technological trajectories (Castellacci & Lie, 2017 ; Kiefer et al, 2019 ; Thurner & Roud, 2016 ) and combinations of different forms of knowledge (Marzucchi & Montresor, 2017 ). Following this line of research, further attempts to structure the analysis of different EI patterns are provided by Marin et al ( 2015 ) for EU countries, Thurner and Roud ( 2016 ) for Russia, Castellacci and Lie ( 2017 ) for Korea, Caravella and Crespi ( 2020a ) for Italy. This new stream of literature shows how firms’ EI activities may be highly differentiated in terms of intensity (Marin et al, 2015 ), originality (Roud, 2018 ), and green objectives (Caravella & Crespi, 2020a , 2020b ; Castellacci & Lie, 2017 ).…”

“…Following this line of research, further attempts to structure the analysis of different EI patterns are provided by Marin et al ( 2015 ) for EU countries, Thurner and Roud ( 2016 ) for Russia, Castellacci and Lie ( 2017 ) for Korea, Caravella and Crespi ( 2020a ) for Italy. This new stream of literature shows how firms’ EI activities may be highly differentiated in terms of intensity (Marin et al, 2015 ), originality (Roud, 2018 ), and green objectives (Caravella & Crespi, 2020a , 2020b ; Castellacci & Lie, 2017 ). Depending on the EI trajectory followed, firms need to be equipped with a different set of capabilities (Yong et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Concerning the regressors, our main variable is categorical and grasps different technological trajectories (one standard and four environmental innovation strategies) carried out by the 7th CIS surveyed firms, with the baseline represented by non-innovators (n = 1410). 6 In particular, for the identification of the four different EI modes we rely on the taxonomy proposed by Caravella and Crespi ( 2020a ). The authors perform a cluster analysis starting from the CIS information on the different green goals achieved by firms through their innovation-related activities (Table 1 ).…”

“…Moreover, EI is characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity in firms’ innovation behaviors, which makes its potential as a growth driver even more unpredictable. As recently highlighted by empirical studies, there are distinct ‘modes’ of dealing with EI in terms of engagement (Marin et al, 2015 ), technological trajectories (Marzucchi & Montresor, 2017 ), and environmental goals achieved (Castellacci & Lie, 2017 ; Caravella & Crespi, 2020a ). This implies that, among the whole array of EI activities, the most complex and risky ones can hardly be managed by those companies which are particularly weak in terms of knowledge, technological, and financial endowments.…”