Impact of innovative practices in environmental focused firms. Moderating factors

Abstract

[EN] Innovation and sustainable development have been considered fundamental elements in the competitive positioning of companies. The synergies between both concepts, known as eco-innovation, must be considered when designing company policies. The aim of this paper is to analyse which moderating factors determine how innovative companies perform when implementing a sustainable proactive approach. We analysed a representative sample of Spanish companies using a quantitative method based on data collected from the PITEC database. The empirical results show that company and market size, formal innovative activity (reflected by registered numbers of patents) as well as total expenditure on technology acquisition influence the eco-innovative orientation of firms.