Environmental innovation approaches and business performance: effects of environmental regulations and resource commitment

摘要

This study investigates whether environmental regulations andrnresource commitment (RC) can motivate manufacturers to engagernin environmental innovation, thereby improving their businessrnperformance. This study proposes a multidimensional frameworkrnof ‘Regulation–Innovation–Performance’ as an extension of thernPorter Hypothesis, and examines the effect of RC on environmentalrninnovation simultaneously. In this study, environmental regulationsrnare categorised into command-and-control regulations (CCR) andrnmarket-based regulations (MBR). Innovative approaches are classifiedrnas either exploratory or exploitative environmental innovations.rnBusiness performance is divided into measures of effectiveness andrnefficiency. Further, this study employs the partial least-squares methodrnto analyse 166 sets of sample data from Taiwanese manufacturersrnto verify the hypotheses. The results reveal that CCR positivelyrnaffect both exploratory and exploitative environmental innovationrnapproaches. By contrast, MBR have a significant positive effect only onrnexploratory environmental innovation. This study finds RC to be thernmain determinant in both environmental innovation approaches. Inrnaddition, although exploratory environmental innovation is beneficialrnin terms of enhancing firm effectiveness, no significant correlation withrnfirm efficiency was observed. Exploitative environmental innovationrnis positively and significantly associated with firms’ effective andrnefficient performance.