Is environmental innovation embedded within high-performance organisational changes? The role of human resource management and complementarity in green business strategies

Davide Antonioli, Susanna Mancinelli () and Massimiliano Mazzanti

Research Policy, 2013, vol. 42, issue 4, 975-988

Abstract: This paper investigates whether firms’ joint implementation of organisational innovation and training may foster their adoption of environmental innovation (EI), and if this correlation falls within Porter Hypothesis (PH) framework. We study the relationship of complementarity between strategies of High Performance Work Practices (HPWP) and Human Resource Management (HRM) when EI adoption is the firms’ objective, using an original dataset on 555 Italian industrial firms regarding EI, HPWP and HRM, coherent with the last CIS2006-2008 survey. Results show that sector specificity matter. The only case in which strict complementarity is observed in organisational change concerns CO2 abatement, a relatively complex type of EI, but this is true only when the sample is restricted to more polluting (and regulated) sectors. This evidence is coherent with the Porter hypothesis: complementarity-related adoption of EI is an element of organisational change in firms that are subject to more stringent environmental regulations. Nevertheless, the fact that strict complementarity is not a diffuse factor behind the adoption of all environmental innovation indeed does not come as a surprise. At this stage in the development of green strategies, the share of eco-firms is still limited, even in advanced countries that are seeking tools for a new competitiveness. The full integration of EIs within the internal capabilities and firm's own assets is far from being reached, even in advanced and competitive industrial settings.

Keywords: Environmental innovations; Complementarity; HRM; HPWP; Training; Innovation survey; Manufacturing firms; Porter hypothesis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L6 M53 O3 Q55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (116)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733313000036
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:respol:v:42:y:2013:i:4:p:975-988

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2012.12.005

Access Statistics for this article

Research Policy is currently edited by M. Bell, B. Martin, W.E. Steinmueller, A. Arora, M. Callon, M. Kenney, S. Kuhlmann, Keun Lee and F. Murray

More articles in Research Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().