SMEs and barriers to Eco-innovation in the EU: exploring different firm profiles

By Giovanni Marin, Alberto Marzucchi, Roberto Zoboli. 2015

153 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Eco-innovation is an explicit aim of major EU policy strategies. Many environmental policies de facto require firms to eco-innovate to comply with policy requirements, while the overlap between policy-driven and market-driven eco-innovation strategies is increasingly important for many firms. Barriers to eco-innovation can then emerge as a critical factor in either preventing or stimulating EU strategies, policy implementation, and the green strategies of firms. In this paper we focus on EU-27 SMEs. We single out and explore different firm profiles, considering eco-innovation barriers and engagement. Our analysis is based on a particularly suitable dataset: the Eurobarometer survey on “Attitudes of European entrepreneurs towards eco-innovation”. We identify six clusters of SMEs. These clusters include firms facing either ‘Revealed barriers’ or ‘Deterring barriers’, ‘Cost deterred’ firms, ‘Market deterred’ firms, ‘Non eco-innovators’, and ‘Green champions’. The clusters display substantial differences in terms of eco-innovation adoption. We show that our taxonomy has little overlap with sector classifications. This diversity should be taken into account for successful environmental and innovation policies.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Marketing, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/07ccf254ae7a87e5fa7fd8abb03bb3793ca03d66

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Economics and Econometrics

1. Sandro Montresor
2. Pelin Demirel
3. Q. Li
4. Alberto Marzucchi
5. J. Love

In Marketing

1. Alberto Marzucchi
2. Sandro Montresor
3. Pelin Demirel

In Strategy and Management

1. Alberto Marzucchi
2. Sandro Montresor
3. Pelin Demirel
4. Q. Li
5. J. Love

Citations in the corpus

• Born to be green: new insights into the economics and management of green entrepreneurship (2017, background): “can refer to a wide range of factors that are as distinct as environmental management performance (Darnall and Edwards 2006), green technologies (Meyskens and Carsrud 2013), individual commitment toward the environment by a team of founders (Kuckertz and Wagner 2010), creation of environmentally sus”
• Forms of knowledge and eco-innovation modes: Evidence from Spanish manufacturing firms (2017, background): “…for instance, to: demand characteristics that affect the adoption of EI strategies (Horbach et al., 2012; Kesidou and Demirel, 2012), or common regulations (e.g. Marin et al., 2015), and thus responsive innovative solutions (Porter and Van der Linde, 1995) that can be applied by the focal firm too.”