The Effect of Sustainability as Innovation Objectives on Innovation Efficiency

Jaeho Shin, Changhee Kim and Hongsuk Yang
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Jaeho Shin: College of Business Administration, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
Changhee Kim: College of Business Administration, Incheon National University, Incheon 22012, Korea
Hongsuk Yang: College of Business Administration, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 6, 1-13

Abstract: Though sustainability exists as major objective of pursuing innovation, the effect of it on innovation performance is still unanswered. While the outcome of innovation should consider both input and output, moreover, studies on sustainable innovation are yet to consider the overall efficiency, but rather the performance itself. To fill the gap between the effect of sustainability as the objective of innovation and its innovation performance, and to bridge the hole between the outcome of sustainable innovation and its efficiency, we analyze the relationship between sustainability as innovation objective and innovation efficiency. We use 441 manufacturing companies in Korea from 2016 KIS data, and perform the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method to calculate efficiency score of each firm and tobit regression analysis to investigate the effect of sustainability as an objective of innovation on innovation efficiency. The results show that the objective of ‘environmental improvement’ negatively affects innovation efficiency, while ‘safety improvement’ positively affects the efficiency. On the contrary, the effect of ‘material and energy reduction’ as an objective of innovation on innovation efficiency is not verified. The implications, limitations, and guidelines for future research are presented.

Keywords: objective of innovation; sustainable innovation; innovation efficiency; data envelopment analysis (DEA); tobit regression analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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