Environmental management practices: good or bad news for innovations delivering environmental benefits? The moderating effect of market characteristics

Abstract

We examine empirically whether environmental management practices (EMPs) (environmental audits, ISO 14001 standard, etc.) promote (or not) additional innovations delivering environmental benefits. Using a large sample of French firms (N = 4114) and simultaneous equations model (SEM), we found that EMPs positively influence the decision of firms to introduce innovations delivering environmental benefits, but this positive relationship is moderated by market characteristics. The findings indicate that EMPs promote such environmental-related innovations when the market of the main activity of the firm is growing. However, when the market is uncertain or competitive, this relationship turns out to be negative.

Institutional Pressures and Environmental Management Practices: The Moderating Effects of Environmental Commitment and Resource Availability

“…() and Grolleau et al . (). This research also includes several control variables, namely firm size, firm age and ownership structure, which may affect the implementation of environmental management practices.…”

“…Environmental management practices refer to ‘measures, techniques, procedures, and policies a firm uses which are aimed at monitoring and reducing the negative impacts on the natural environment’, such as taking note of environmental considerations when designing new products or developing new processes, adopting advanced technologies to use/reuse/recycling of resource and energy, and implementing environmental management programs (Montabon et al ., ; Leonidou et al ., ; Yu et al ., ). In fact, the implementation of environmental management practices can reduce the pollution levels by more than 50%, and thus they are regarded as effective methods to protect the natural environment (Brammer et al ., ; Grolleau et al ., ). While the significance and importance of implementing environmental management practices is widely recognized, not all firms are willing to implement environmental management practices in their daily operation management (Brammer et al ., ; Zhu et al ., ).…”

The influence of managerial satisfaction on corporate environmental performance and reputation

“…Their survey was based on 1,277 companies and reported a whole positive effect of the EMS on process innovations including an environmental dimension. Grolleau et al (2015) found that ISO 14001 certification promotes innovation and their findings highlighted the EMS's ability to stimulate environmental investments. reported a positive link between the number of ISO 14001 certificates and environmental patents at country level.…”

Customer orientation and firm’s business performance

“…We further build on the mediation model above by introducing a contingency approach to a moderated mediation model. Scholars have identified the contingency approach as a valuable way to expand our understanding of the relationship between customer orientation, environmental innovation and firm’s business performance (Delmas and Pekovic, 2015; Grolleau et al , 2014; Kumar et al , 2011, 1998; Martin-Tapia et al , 2008; Homburg et al , 2007; Aragón-Correa and Sharma, 2003; Harris, 2001; Appiah-Adu, 1998; Greenley, 1995; Russo and Fouts, 1997; Slater and Narver, 1994). The discussion above suggests that a moderated mediation model will more comprehensively depict the relationship between customer orientation and firm performance.…”