Organizational factors and technological features in the development of green innovations: Evidence from patent analysis
Antonio Messeni Petruzzelli
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Meccanica e Gestionale, Politecnico di Bari, Viale Japigia, Bari, Italy
Rosa Maria Dangelico
Dipartimento di Ingegneria per l’Ambiente e lo Sviluppo Sostenibile, Politecnico di Bari, Via Alcide De Gasperi, Taranto, Italy
Daniele Rotolo
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Meccanica e Gestionale, Politecnico di Bari, Viale Japigia, Bari, Italy
Vito Albino
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Meccanica e Gestionale, Politecnico di Bari, Viale Japigia, Bari, Italy
PP: 291 - 310
Abstract
In the present paper we investigate whether and to what extent green innovations significantly differ from non-green ones, in terms of (i) inter- and intra-organizational relationships leading to their development and (ii) technological characteristics, as complexity and novelty. Then, we study the impact of these organizational factors and technological features on the value of green innovations. In particular, we focus on a specific type of green innovations, as green technological innovations, and consider green patents as proxy for them.
Analyzing green and non-green patents developed by a sample of companies included in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, we find that green innovations have important peculiarities compared to conventional ones. Specifically, developing green innovations requires establishing collaborations with external actors as well as among internal actors to a greater extent, while the technologies underling green innovations seem to be characterized by a higher degree of complexity and novelty.
With regard to the value of green innovations, results show that the most valuable ones are those that more highly rely on collaborations among internal actors, whereas higher levels of novelty seem to be detrimental, at least in the short-medium term.
Keywords
green innovation; environmental technologies; patents; intra-organizational collaborations; inter-organizational collaborations; technological complexity; technological novelty
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