External stakeholder engagement: Complementary and substitutive effects on firms' eco‐innovation

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate whether firms' engagements in collaboration agreements with different types of external stakeholders produce complementary effects on the likelihood of eco-innovation. Although collaboration network and open eco-innovation theories affirm that the combination of external partners such as scientific partners, suppliers and customers produces complementary effects on the firm's likelihood of eco-innovation, several empirical studies found the existence of substitutive effects between them. To bridge this gap in the literature, we shape the nature of the interaction between different external partners, analysing an unbalanced panel sample of 10,918 innovative Spanish firms, covering the period 2008-2016. Consequently, we can show how firms benefit the most from collaboration with external partners. Our results show that firms that simultaneously collaborate with scientific partners, suppliers and customers generate partial complementary effects, which increase the firm's likelihood to eco-innovate the most, and that the combination of customer-collaboration with scientific partners, or suppliercollaboration, produces partial substitutive effects. Taking this in account, our results also confirm that engaging with scientific partners, suppliers or customers, independent of one another, increases firms' likelihood of eco-innovation more than noncollaboration. These results have important implications for managers, researchers and policy designers. For managers, this study provides a correct understanding of the benefits that they can expect to obtain from multi-partner external collaboration. For researchers, it introduces the marginal analysis to estimate interaction on nonlinear models. Finally, for policy designers, it shows the need for sponsored R&D collaboration to encourage coordinated ecosystems in which sustainability goals are pursued together.

Friends or foes? A systematic literature review and meta‐analysis of the relationship between eco‐innovation and firm performance

“…The non‐significant relationship between eco‐technology and eco‐management innovation suggests that firms trying to enhance their social performance through eco‐innovation without hurting their economic performance should be very careful about what type of eco‐innovation they choose. If they want to do so in the short or medium term, choosing one of the two types of eco‐innovation would not be wise as it is unlikely to lead to complementary effects on the likelihood of external stakeholders' engagement (Acebo et al, 2021).…”

Tax incentives and green innovation—The mediating role of financing constraints and the moderating role of subsidies

“…This can also be used to explain in terms of external stakeholder theory (Mainardes et al, 2011). Tax incentives act as a positive signal that will reduce the concerns of external stakeholders of the firm about the firm's green innovation activities (Acebo et al, 2021), and external stakeholders participate in the firm's green activities, increasing investors' confidence. In column (4), the coefficient of Frontiers in Environmental Science frontiersin.org the cross term (Tax × Sub) on GI is -0.011 at 10% significant level, verifying hypothesis H3.…”

Postformation alliance capabilities and environmental innovation: The roles of environmental in‐learning and relation‐specific investments

“…Thus, we take a cue from the principle of combinative capabilities (Kogut & Zander, 1992) and argue that the combination of firms' ability to coordinate and communicate will strongly impact on environmental in‐learning than when they are deployed individually. Further, recent studies highlight the advantages of complementarities between different activities in strategic decision making and actions (e.g., Acebo et al, 2021; García‐Marco et al, 2020); hence, rather than adopting a singular activity, exploiting complementarities between the two capabilities of coordination and communication will enhance environmental in‐learning. In effect, we expect that aligning interorganizational coordination and communication will have a synergistic effect on environmental in‐learning.…”