The Influence of Technology Differences on Corporate Environmental Patents: A Resource-Based Versus an Institutional View of Green Innovations

This paper proposes that both the resource-based view and institutional theory predict a positive relationship between the number of patented environmental innovations and non-environmental innovations held by a firm, because they both are subject to the influence of similar factors. However, while the resource-based view predicts that technological differences between the patented environmental innovations owned by a firm and those in the industry as a whole will positively affect the firm's environmental innovations, the institutional perspective predicts a negative relationship. Our results derive from a sample of 5537 environmental patents from 59 large companies in the electrical components and equipment industry worldwide, and show a positive relationship between patented environmental and non-environmental innovations in a firm, but a negative influence on the number of the firm's patented environmental innovations resulting from differences between the firm's environmental technologies and those generally prevalent in the industry. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment