Do independent, female and specialist directors promote eco‐innovation and eco‐design in agri‐food firms?

Abstract

Eco‐innovation and eco‐design strategies are associated with firms' innovation capabilities. Moreover, they may impact on access to public subsidies and on financial performance. In this respect, the agri‐food industry is especially vulnerable, because in general, this sector has less experience of technological innovation, and managers are more likely to be averse to such projects. On the other hand, the board may promote a proactive environmental approach to defend the interests of investors and other stakeholders, taking the view that these strategies reduce the environmental impact of the firm's products and its production processes and are therefore beneficial. Our study aim is to identify the profile of directors who may be favourable to eco‐design and eco‐innovation strategies, focusing on the traits of independence, gender diversity and environmental specialisation. The results obtained, from a dependence model based on panel data supplied by 321 agri‐food companies for the period 2002–2017 (unbalanced panel data with 4878 observations), show that independent directors play a crucial role in implementing eco‐innovation and eco‐design projects. However, neither the diversity nor the specialisation of directors is a significant factor in this regard.

Is It Necessary to Centralize Power in the CEO to Ensure Environmental Innovation?

“…Furthermore, eco-innovation investments are also strengthened by regulatory pressure at national and sectoral level as well as by the existence of a CSR committee on the board of directors. In this case, our results contrast with those obtained by García-Sánchez et al (2021), who found a positive but not statistically significant effect of the existence of a CSR committee on eco-innovation.…”

“…Regarding the control variables, following previous studies (García-Sánchez et al 2020a;García-Sánchez et al 2020b;García-Sánchez et al 2021), we have included a broad set of control variables representing the firm's capabilities and resources, monitoring mechanisms, and institutional pressures. The inclusion of these variables allows us to avoid biased results because of the impact they have on the development of proactive environmental strategies by companies.…”

“…Furthermore, the monitoring role and independence of the board of directors are also affected by its size. With regard to the influence of board independence on eco-innovation, García-Sánchez et al (2021) found that it has a positive effect on ecoinnovation and eco-design strategies. According to the upper echelon theory, the decisionmakers' characteristics, independently they are managers or directors, influence business strategies (Hambrick and Mason 1984).…”

Environmental Performance of the Tourism Sector from a Gender Diversity Perspective

“…The results for the relationship of interest are also shown. [27,47,85,89] Use of resources [27,71,85] Emissions [19,47,72,85,[90][91][92] Environmental innovation [30,31,93,94] Environmental performance Negative relationship [87] Consumption of water and energy [95] Environmental innovation [28,34,[96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104][105][106] Environmental performance No relationship [29] Consumption of energy [27,85] Environmental innovation Source: authors, based on the literature review.…”

Spatial Dynamics between Firm Sales and Environmental Responsibility: The Mediating Role of Corporate Innovation

“…Enterprises should not be developed at the cost of the ecological environment [17]. Enterprises must abide by relevant laws and regulations and protect the ecological environment [18,19].…”