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This study contributes to current efforts to design and implement sustainable innovation strategies in organisations from the textile industry. This study aims to examine how businesses can overcome the current challenges (e.g. lack of resources) of sustainable innovation by the incorporation of green knowledge of customers into their value co-creation strategies. Such strategies are based on actively listening to customers and addressing their expectations with regard to environmental sustainability, in particular in the face of the negative environmental impact of the fast-fashion industry.

The findings of this study are derived from the analysis of data collected from 208 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Spanish textile sector. A partial least squares structural equation modeling analysis was conducted using version 3.3.3 of the SmartPLS software.

This paper contributes to the literature on environmental sustainability by informing SME eco-innovation through the active listening of their customers’ perceptions while implementing value co-creation strategies. The research has found that engaging with customers and actively listening and addressing their expectations can result in the creation of green knowledge that contributes to both incremental and radical eco-innovation in the textile sector.

This study found that when organisations from the sector lack eco-innovation capabilities, their existing and often their potential customer base is able to acquire new environmental knowledge and transfer it to the business through a process of value co-creation. The research also found that such green knowledge has the potential to lead to eco-innovation in the sector. In other words, the value co-creation process between the textile industry and its customers is a driver of the eco-innovations required to reduce the environmental impact of the sector, helping it address both its sustainability and its ethical challenges.

This study proposes that co-creation challenges such as the lack of resources, funding, qualified staff or technologies motivate companies in the textile sector to collaborate with their customers to seek joint solutions.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the role of eco-innovation type and its degree of novelty in increasing the stock returns of technology-based knowledge-intensive business service companies (T-KIBS), to advance the development of the concept of eco-innovation within the literature on the effects of innovation.

The effects of four eco-innovation types were examined across three degrees of novelty involved. The event study methodology was applied to the sample of 238 eco-innovation announcements released during the period of January 2016–June 2019 (inclusive) by European T-KIBS.

While the implementation of product and organisational eco-innovation was the most beneficial, the results indicated that a high degree of novelty resulted in larger increase of stock returns in the case of all the four eco-innovation types.

The eco-innovation announcements were gathered from specialised databases. However, it could be the case that companies may have used different communication channels (e.g. social media) to communicate innovation. Furthermore, a certain amount of bias undoubtedly exists, as the data came only from the European Union. Expanding the spatial scope to include the North American (especially the USA) and Asian economies appears necessary.

The practical insights into the role that the degree of novelty plays in eco-innovation announcements were formulated, which may be used to increase the market valuation of the firm.

Strategies supporting eco-innovation are crucial for business development as the value created for the stakeholders involved transmits in time into the enterprise value.

The paper attempts to fill the research gap concerning the impact of eco-innovation on the stock returns of T-KIBS.

Based on the dynamic capability view, this study aims to draw for the first time the missing link between big data analytics capabilities (BDAC) on both green absorptive capacity (GAC) and green entrepreneurship orientation (GEO). It is theoretically necessary to address how BDAC levels up the GAC to achieve the same level of GEO and then respond to their green business agenda. In addition, the study introduces knowledge sharing (KS) and green organizational ambidexterity (GOA) as potential moderating factors in the relationship between GEO and eco-innovation and explores the mediation role of GAC in the BDAC–GEO relationship.

The study collected 268 questionnaires from employees working in Chinese manufacturing firms using a self-administered survey and cross-sectional research design. The study applied SmartPLS to analyze the obtained data.

The findings revealed that BDAC positively and significantly influences GAC and GEO, positively impacting eco-innovation. The KS and GOA's moderation effect strengthens the relationship between GEO and eco-innovation. GAC partially mediates the relationship between BDAC and GEO.

The study advises firms to invest heavily in developing technological aspects of BDAC as a dynamic strategic capability that facilitates tracking and anticipating the future behavior changes of customers, competitors and market demands. BDAC also allows firms to upgrade and reconfigure their dynamic capabilities by responding to managerial, operational and strategic necessities. BDAC is necessary to increase GAC's impact and help drive GEO's eco-business agenda. Notably, the study gave superior attention to KS and GOA as a backbone of GEO to improve eco-innovation economic and managerial outcomes.

The study highlights the necessity to upgrade and integrate technological aspects of BDAC within firms' GEO to enhance green practices. Significantly, green business practices changed quickly as customers' needs and eco-markets fluctuated; BDAC is the crucial dynamic capability fostering GAC and entrepreneurs' green mindset to deal with environmental challenges. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is to predict the potential effect of BDAC on both GAC and GEO. BDAC helps firms to develop GEO eco-business agenda and balance green growth with green issues.

The purpose of this paper is to understand a typology of eco-innovation that best characterizes an innovation incubator, with the aim of strengthening the management of this habitat to leverage the development of new eco-innovation technologies.

The typologies of 22 studies identified in the Web of Science, Scopus, Scielo and Science Direct databases were analyzed through a theoretical and descriptive study and method of systematic literature review. In the typologies analyzed, none were found that fit directly into the environment of an innovation incubator.

The most detailed typology, by Fernando et al. (2015), is characterized as a type of eco-innovation developed in a specific market, but it does not address the characteristics of this innovation habitat, which is the incubator.

Thus, based on the typologies presented, this paper demonstrates the construction of an instrument that contemplates the authors analyzed, with emphasis on its application in incubators.

This paper demonstrates the construction of an instrument that contemplates the authors analyzed, with emphasis on the application in incubators.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Active listening to customers can help drive eco-knowledge and the adoption of green and radical innovations.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to gain insights into strategies used by entrepreneurs developing radical innovations to influence the system surrounding them. Specific attention is given to determine the differences between environmental-technology entrepreneurs (ETEs) and non-eco radical innovation entrepreneurs.

Methodology/approach – Ten entrepreneurs (five ETEs) in the Dutch greenhouse horticulture sector are selected for this case study. Their motivations and strategic actions are determined through interviews. The results are analysed using an innovation system function approach.

Findings – Radical innovations in the sector encounter barriers due to the lack of relevant knowledge and subsidies that support the old system. To overcome this, the studied entrepreneurs focus their strategies on building new innovation systems. Interestingly, ETEs receive more governmental support and try to improve the sector as a whole. However, sustainability alone is not enough to create added value.

Social implications – Policy makers can provide better support for radical innovations by increasing the availability of relevant knowledge and creating a level playing field. Alternatively, they can present these pioneering entrepreneurs as examples for others to follow. Sustainability has been important in the sector for some time, but until now has not changed the nature of business.

Originality/value of paper – In innovation systems research, the micro-level actions of entrepreneurs have not received much attention. Furthermore, the insights regarding motivations and strategies of radical innovation entrepreneurs in the context of a mature system are novel. Finally, the results regarding barriers for ETEs are an original addition to the theory of barriers for eco-innovations.

The presentation of the specificities inherent in the adoption of the cooperation practices for the eco-innovation development is sometimes fragmented and superficial in the literature. So, the purpose of this paper is to analyze how the literature has studied the association between interorganizational cooperation and the development of eco-innovation, for the developing a framework with the different faces of this connection.

To achieve the proposed objective, the authors conducted a literature review through the Web of Science database. The selected manuscripts were analyzed from the following categories: Why to cooperate?, What is cooperation?, How to cooperate?, Who to cooperate with?, How much is it worth to cooperate?, Where does cooperation take place?, When to cooperate?, and So what?.

Given the proposed objective, as a general aspect highlighted, the analyzed articles revealed that interorganizational cooperation has been presented as relevant for the development of eco-innovations. Thus, cooperation on their different faces allows companies to overcome resource constraints, even partially, while facilitating the development of different types of ecological innovations as costs and risks are reduced.

The theoretical contribution is expected to be the proposition of a framework capable of systematizing several specificities, including the antecedents and motivations, definitions and cooperation types, cooperation partners, important conditions that highlight how much cooperation is worth, where and when cooperation occurs and, finally, the main insights of this association, to guide future studies.

This paper aims to review how current policy instruments drive (or not) environmental innovation and, by doing so, to reinvestigate the relationship between innovation and regulation.

A comprehensive literature review on innovation and environmental regulation created a theoretical foundation of the paper. Using the grounded theory, a model was developed and evaluated using interviews. This is a timely topic as the new shape of recent environmental regulation appears to be fairly strict. A new model is presented to encapsulate highly dynamic interaction of environmental innovation and regulation to provide results that reflect on the present innovation behaviour and its implications.

The model highlights various diffusion pathways that are triggered by the main three drivers of innovation namely government (regulation), market (competition and cost) and technology which has the possibility of an autonomous diffusion.

The empirical data are limited to 13 qualitative experts' interviews within industry, consultancies and governmental departments.

The suggested model is particularly useful for policy makers to better understand the innovation dynamics and its diffusion pathways to design smarter regulations that incentivise rather than force organisations to comply with regulation.

The paper shows how regulation drives (or not) innovation and how various diffusion pathways can be used by external stakeholders to direct and promote innovation.

Literature on eco-innovation brings insights that help to understand which factors trigger innovation focused on sustainability in companies. However, when analyzing the studies that comprise such drivers, it appears that most of them were focused only on describing them in isolation. Therefore, this study aims to understand which are the combinations of drivers that favor the adoption of eco-innovation in slaughterhouses located in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.

This study has used the crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis (csQCA) as the data analysis technique, in addition to the previous application of Most Similar Different Outcome/Most Different Same Outcome (MSDO/MDSO).

This study identified eight internal and external drivers that explain the differences in performance of eco-innovative and non-innovative slaughterhouses. These drivers generate 13 combinations of factors capable of favoring the adoption of five types of eco-innovation.

A limitation identified was the difficulty to obtain information held by companies on environmental issues. In addition, in each company the authors only approached one respondent.

The use of combinations is identified by companies and governmental and non-governmental organizations to promote eco-innovation in slaughterhouses.

This study may be considered original for its contribution to the improvement of eco-innovation literature by describing how the drivers identified combine to favor the adoption of certain types of eco-innovation. In addition, the authors also made an original use of csQCA, linked with MSDO/MDSO, in the field of eco-innovation.

Firms are engaging in eco-innovation as a response to environmental concerns. Due to its complexity, firms are searching, absorbing and using externally acquired knowledge toward implementing eco-innovation. Thus, this study aims to examine how different external knowledge sources affect the eco-innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing economies.

The study uses an Ordered Probit regression analysis for 318 developing economy SMEs to examine the impact of vertical flows (suppliers and customers) and horizontal flows (competitors and scientific organisations) on eco-innovations.

On the vertical dimension, the results show that external knowledge from suppliers is positively associated with eco-product and eco-process innovations. However, external knowledge from customers is positively associated with eco-product innovation, but not eco-process innovation. On the horizontal dimension, external knowledge from competitors contributes to eco-process innovation, but not to eco-product innovation. Finally, external knowledge from scientific organizations is positively related to eco-product and eco-process innovations.

First, the study contributes to the external knowledge literature by focusing on developing country SMEs. Second, the methodology used in this study constitutes a novelty as it provides a tool that categorizes firms according to the extent of emphasis they placed on both eco-product and eco-process innovations. Finally, it offers new evidence by revealing that the effects of external knowledge on eco-innovations are differentiated and not equally beneficial to firms.