A Survey of the Literature on Environmental Innovation Based on Main Path Analysis

Abstract

This paper reviews the literature on environmental innovation (EI) and systematizes it by means of an original methodology identifying the main directions in which the literature on EI has developed over time. In order to do so, two algorithms are adopted and used to analyze a citation network of journal articles and books. The main path analysis reveals that this literature revolves around the following topics: i) determinants of EI; ii) economic effects of EI; iii) environmental effects of EI; and iv) policy inducement in EI. Each of these topics is discussed and implications from the main findings as well as possible future research extensions are outlined.

Born to be green: new insights into the economics and management of green entrepreneurship

“…However, these insights have yet to infiltrate the green entrepreneurship literature where the environmentally friendly product and process innovations dominate the debate (Barbieri et al 2016). In most markets, born green companies co-exist and compete against their larger and more established counterparts that eventually Bgo green^, warranting a closer examination of the role firm age has on the behaviour and performance of firms in the green domain (Dean and McMullen 2007;Pinkse and Groot 2015).…”

“…Firms' ability to introduce and benefit from ecoinnovations depends on where they are in their life cycle as well as on the stage of their industry life cycle (Barbieri et al 2016;Carrillo-Hermosilla et al 2010). Yet, little empirical evidence exists to unravel the role of age and industry life cycle for the evolution of green start-ups' innovation and financial performance across different green sectors.…”

Eco-Efficiency Actions and Firm Growth in European SMEs

“…Given the PH framework, a range of empirical studies have set out to analyse the relationship between eco-strategies and performance at firm-level (see Barbieri et al [3] for a recent literature review on the economic effects of eco-innovations and also some examples: [9,14,16,18,[26][27][28]). Despite the accumulation of empirical work on this topic over the last decade, there is no general consensus on the direction and magnitude of the relationship.…”

“…Although in existing research there seems to be a robust understanding of the factors that determine which innovations positively impact the environment [1][2][3], exactly how eco-strategies to reduce environmental impact affect firm performance is still widely debated.…”

“…Recently, Barbieri et al, Ambec et al, Dixon-Fowler et al and Albertini [3,[6][7][8]] provided reviews and meta-studies summarizing the empirical work on the economic effects of eco-strategies. These studies reveal the presence of considerable diversity in the empirical results, ranging from negative through non-significant to moderately (or even strongly) positive links between eco-innovation and firm performance.…”