IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/sustdv/v28y2020i6p1787-1795.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is environmental innovation contagious? A study on the mechanism of individual firms' environmental innovation affecting the industry

Author

Listed:
  • Zhongju Liao
  • Yan Liu
  • Mengsha Li

Abstract

Based on the social network theory, this paper examined the contagion effect of a firm's environmental innovation on the industry. We selected the firm's ownership as the moderator variable and industry's financial performance as the mediator variable. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the model with the data of 1,588 listed firms among 28 industries in the Chinese manufacturing sector between 2012 and 2018. The results showed that the individual firm's environmental innovation had a contagion effect on the environmental innovation of other firms in the same industry, that is, the higher the degree of individual firms' environmental innovation, the higher the degree of environmental innovation will be in other firms. Further research indicates that the firm's ownership structure affects the environmental innovation contagion mechanism: when individual firms are privately owned, the contagion effect is stronger. In addition, the individual firm's environmental innovation undercut the financial performance of other firms in the same industry, which, in turn, promotes environmental innovation among these firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhongju Liao & Yan Liu & Mengsha Li, 2020. "Is environmental innovation contagious? A study on the mechanism of individual firms' environmental innovation affecting the industry," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(6), pages 1787-1795, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:28:y:2020:i:6:p:1787-1795
    DOI: 10.1002/sd.2126
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2126
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sd.2126?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrei Shleifer, 1998. "State versus Private Ownership," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 133-150, Fall.
    2. Jeong, Dae-hyun & Cho, Keuntae & Park, Sangyong & Hong, Soon-ki, 2016. "Effects of knowledge diffusion on international joint research and science convergence: Multiple case studies in the fields of lithium-ion battery, fuel cell and wind power," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 15-27.
    3. Martin Woerter & Tobias Stucki, 2016. "Intra-Firm Diffusion of Green Energy Technologies and the Choice of Policy Instruments," KOF Working papers 16-401, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    4. Zhongju Liao & Siying Long, 2019. "Can interfirm trust improve firms' cooperation on environmental innovation? The moderating role of environmental hostility," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 198-205, January.
    5. Yu, Wantao & Ramanathan, Ramakrishnan & Nath, Prithwiraj, 2017. "Environmental pressures and performance: An analysis of the roles of environmental innovation strategy and marketing capability," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 160-169.
    6. Mingfeng Tang & Grace Walsh & Daniel Lerner & Markus A. Fitza & Qiaohua Li, 2018. "Green Innovation, Managerial Concern and Firm Performance: An Empirical Study," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 39-51, January.
    7. Charles F. Manski, 2000. "Economic Analysis of Social Interactions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 115-136, Summer.
    8. Caroline Flammer, 2015. "Does Corporate Social Responsibility Lead to Superior Financial Performance? A Regression Discontinuity Approach," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(11), pages 2549-2568, November.
    9. Ting Kong & Taiwen Feng & Chunming Ye, 2016. "Advanced Manufacturing Technologies and Green Innovation: The Role of Internal Environmental Collaboration," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(10), pages 1-18, October.
    10. Stummer, Christian & Kiesling, Elmar & Günther, Markus & Vetschera, Rudolf, 2015. "Innovation diffusion of repeat purchase products in a competitive market: An agent-based simulation approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 245(1), pages 157-167.
    11. Demsetz, Harold & Villalonga, Belen, 2001. "Ownership structure and corporate performance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 209-233, September.
    12. De Marchi, Valentina, 2012. "Environmental innovation and R&D cooperation: Empirical evidence from Spanish manufacturing firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 614-623.
    13. Ghisetti, Claudia & Pontoni, Federico, 2015. "Investigating policy and R&D effects on environmental innovation: A meta-analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 57-66.
    14. Giovanni Marin & Antonello Zanfei, 2019. "Does host market regulation induce cross‐border environmental innovation?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(7), pages 2089-2119, July.
    15. Xin Pan & Xuanjin Chen & Paresha Sinha & Niannian Dong, 2020. "Are firms with state ownership greener? An institutional complexity view," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 197-211, January.
    16. Sah, Raaj K, 1991. "Social Osmosis and Patterns of Crime," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(6), pages 1272-1295, December.
    17. Zhongju Liao & Siying Long, 2018. "CEOs' regulatory focus, slack resources and firms' environmental innovation," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(5), pages 981-990, September.
    18. John M. Stevens & H. Kevin Steensma & David A. Harrison & Philip L. Cochran, 2005. "Symbolic or substantive document? The influence of ethics codes on financial executives' decisions," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 181-195, February.
    19. Brunnermeier, Smita B. & Cohen, Mark A., 2003. "Determinants of environmental innovation in US manufacturing industries," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 278-293, March.
    20. Yu-Shan Chen, 2010. "The Drivers of Green Brand Equity: Green Brand Image, Green Satisfaction, and Green Trust," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 93(2), pages 307-319, May.
    21. Goyal, Sanjeev & Heidari, Hoda & Kearns, Michael, 2019. "Competitive contagion in networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 58-79.
    22. Yu Liu & Hongwei Xiao & Precious Zikhali & Yingkang Lv, 2014. "Carbon Emissions in China: A Spatial Econometric Analysis at the Regional Level," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(9), pages 1-19, September.
    23. Yu-Shan Chen, 2008. "The Driver of Green Innovation and Green Image – Green Core Competence," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 81(3), pages 531-543, September.
    24. Rosa Dangelico & Devashish Pujari, 2010. "Mainstreaming Green Product Innovation: Why and How Companies Integrate Environmental Sustainability," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 95(3), pages 471-486, September.
    25. Saeidi, Sayedeh Parastoo & Sofian, Saudah & Saeidi, Parvaneh & Saeidi, Sayyedeh Parisa & Saaeidi, Seyyed Alireza, 2015. "How does corporate social responsibility contribute to firm financial performance? The mediating role of competitive advantage, reputation, and customer satisfaction," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 341-350.
    26. Tian, Lihui & Estrin, Saul, 2008. "Retained state shareholding in Chinese PLCs: Does government ownership always reduce corporate value?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 74-89, March.
    27. Li, Kunming & Fang, Liting & He, Lerong, 2019. "How population and energy price affect China's environmental pollution?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 386-396.
    28. Zhongju Liao, 2018. "Market Orientation and FIRMS' Environmental Innovation: The Moderating Role of Environmental Attitude," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 117-127, January.
    29. Justin Doran & Geraldine Ryan, 2016. "The Importance of the Diverse Drivers and Types of Environmental Innovation for Firm Performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(2), pages 102-119, February.
    30. Julie Juan Li & Laura Poppo & Kevin Zheng Zhou, 2008. "Do managerial ties in China always produce value? Competition, uncertainty, and domestic vs. foreign firms," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 383-400, April.
    31. Ester Martínez‐Ros & Rasi Kunapatarawong, 2019. "Green innovation and knowledge: The role of size," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(6), pages 1045-1059, September.
    32. Feng Zhang & Lei Zhu, 2019. "Enhancing corporate sustainable development: Stakeholder pressures, organizational learning, and green innovation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(6), pages 1012-1026, September.
    33. Petra Andries & Ute Stephan, 2019. "Environmental Innovation and Firm Performance: How Firm Size and Motives Matter," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-17, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Suleman Sarwar & Dalia Streimikiene & Rida Waheed & Zouheir Mighri, 2021. "Revisiting the empirical relationship among the main targets of sustainable development: Growth, education, health and carbon emissions," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(2), pages 419-440, March.
    2. Bresciani, Stefano & Puertas, Rosa & Ferraris, Alberto & Santoro, Gabriele, 2021. "Innovation, environmental sustainability and economic development: DEA-Bootstrap and multilevel analysis to compare two regions," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    3. Zhongju Liao & Xiang Zhu, 2022. "A configurational analysis of firms' environmental innovation: Evidence from China's key pollutant‐discharge listed companies," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(6), pages 1511-1522, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eduardo Duque‐Grisales & Javier Aguilera‐Caracuel & Jaime Guerrero‐Villegas & Encarnación García‐Sánchez, 2020. "Does green innovation affect the financial performance of Multilatinas? The moderating role of ISO 14001 and R&D investment," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(8), pages 3286-3302, December.
    2. Ayça Kubra Hizarci‐Payne & İlayda İpek & Gülüzar Kurt Gümüş, 2021. "How environmental innovation influences firm performance: A meta‐analytic review," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 1174-1190, February.
    3. Zhou, Kuo & Luo, Haotian & Ye, Diyu & Tao, Yunqing, 2022. "The power of anti-corruption in environmental innovation: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    4. Peter S. Hofman & Constantin Blome & Martin C. Schleper & Nachiappan Subramanian, 2020. "Supply chain collaboration and eco‐innovations: An institutional perspective from China," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 2734-2754, September.
    5. Mingfeng Tang & Grace Walsh & Daniel Lerner & Markus A. Fitza & Qiaohua Li, 2018. "Green Innovation, Managerial Concern and Firm Performance: An Empirical Study," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 39-51, January.
    6. Morteza Akbari & Hamid Padash & Zahra Shahabaldini Parizi & Haniye Rezaei & Elmira Shahriari & Ala Khosravani, 2022. "A bibliometric review of green innovation research: identifying knowledge domain and network," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(6), pages 3993-4023, December.
    7. Sher Jahan Khan & Amandeep Dhir & Vinit Parida & Armando Papa, 2021. "Past, present, and future of green product innovation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(8), pages 4081-4106, December.
    8. Qiong Yao & Suzhen Zeng & Shibin Sheng & Shiyuan Gong, 2021. "Green innovation and brand equity: moderating effects of industrial institutions," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 573-602, June.
    9. García-Granero, Eva M. & Piedra-Muñoz, Laura & Galdeano-Gómez, Emilio, 2020. "Measuring eco-innovation dimensions: The role of environmental corporate culture and commercial orientation," MPRA Paper 119909, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Lu Zheng & Konstantinos Iatridis, 2022. "Friends or foes? A systematic literature review and meta‐analysis of the relationship between eco‐innovation and firm performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 1838-1855, May.
    11. Chao Hung Wang, 2020. "An environmental perspective extends market orientation: Green innovation sustainability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(8), pages 3123-3134, December.
    12. Juanru Wang & Yajiong Xue & Jin Yang, 2020. "Boundary‐spanning search and firms' green innovation: The moderating role of resource orchestration capability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 361-374, February.
    13. Jana Hojnik, 2017. "In Pursuit of Eco-innovation," UPP Monograph Series, University of Primorska Press, number 978-961-7023-53-4.
    14. Larissa Marchiori Pacheco & Marlon Fernandes Rodrigues Alves & Lara Bartocci Liboni, 2018. "Green absorptive capacity: A mediation‐moderation model of knowledge for innovation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(8), pages 1502-1513, December.
    15. Kittisak Jermsittiparsert & Sudawan Somjai & Sriparinya Toopgajank, 2020. "Factors Affecting Firm s Energy Efficiency and Environmental Performance: The Role of Environmental Management Accounting, Green Innovation and Environmental Proactivity," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 10(3), pages 325-331.
    16. Yahui Li & Wenli Zheng & Yunhui Zhao, 2022. "How Does Green Search Promote Green Innovation? The Mediating Role of Green Control," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-26, August.
    17. Wu, Jiamei & Chen, Zhibin & Guo, Chong, 2022. "How does anti-corruption affect green innovation? Evidence from China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 405-424.
    18. Lin, Woon Leong & Ho, Jo Ann & Sambasivan, Murali & Yip, Nick & Mohamed, Azali Bin, 2021. "Influence of green innovation strategy on brand value: The role of marketing capability and R&D intensity," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    19. Ho, Kung-Cheng & Shen, Xixi & Yan, Cheng & Hu, Xiang, 2023. "Influence of green innovation on disclosure quality: Mediating role of media attention," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    20. Jennifer González-Blanco & Jose Luis Coca-Pérez & Manuel Guisado-González, 2018. "The Contribution of Technological and Non-Technological Innovation to Environmental Performance. An Analysis with a Complementary Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-26, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:28:y:2020:i:6:p:1787-1795. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-1719 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.