Innovation Capacity and the Implementation of Eco-innovation: Toward a Contingency Perspective

This study develops a framework by drawing on the perspectives of contingency theory to investigate how innovation capacity affects eco-innovation. The examination covers four moderators, including customer requirement, export destination, environmental regulation and government subsidy, and focuses on the types of eco-innovation concerning pollution and waste. A sample of 2964 manufacturing firms from the Taiwanese Technological Innovation Survey is utilized to test the hypotheses. A moderated hierarchical logit method is adopted to analyze the data. The results overall suggest that the effect of innovation capacity on eco-innovation depends on the levels of the four moderators. Specifically, the results show that innovation capacity has different effects on eco-innovation when customers have a demand for eco-innovation, export markets have high environmental awareness, future environmental regulations are expected, and the government provides a subsidy for environmental innovation. Copyright (c) 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment