Measuring eco-innovation dimensions: The role of environmental corporate culture and commercial orientation

Abstract

Eco-innovation (EI) is a complex process that involves product, process, organizational and marketing dimensions, each with its own determinants, characteristics and contributions to environmental business performance. Thus, analyzing EI activity is essential to obtaining a holistic view in order to achieve sustainable development. This study offers a multidimensional EI measurement and, what is more, evaluates its relationship with environmental corporate culture and commercial orientation drivers in a high environmental impact context, i.e., the agri-food sector. The proposed model was tested using the partial least-squares technique, which was applied to data collected from a sample of 93 companies located in southeast Spain. This study confirms the importance of several dimensions, namely marketing, organization and process, to corporate adoption of EI. Additionally, this research also reveals the positive relationship that both drivers, environmental corporate culture and commercial orientation, have with EI. The findings also suggest that theorists and practitioners must contemplate EI from the point of view of its four dimensions in order to achieve an efficient, more realistic analysis. Subsequently, this work carries some theoretical conclusions and implications for research and practice.