The Impact of Environmental Orientation on Innovation Performance of Spanish Firms: The Moderating Role of Gender Diversity within R&D Teams and Firm Size

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the relationship between the environmental orientation of firms, as measured by the perceived importance of environmental objectives, and their innovation performance. Existing literature finds evidence that environmentally oriented firms are more innovative yet did not examine the relationship to a sufficient extent. To fill this research gap, this thesis sheds light on the effect of certain moderators, namely the gender diversity within the R&D team and the firm size. The quantitative analysis is based on the Technological Innovation Panel for Spain. The research hypotheses draw on the Resource-Based View, the Natural Resource-Based View, and Gender Roles and Socialization theories. The study expects that the environmental orientation of firms affects the innovation performance, and that such effect varies with the degree of gender diversity within the R&D team and the firm size, respectively. Results show that a firm’s environmental orientation enhances the probability to carry out product and/or process innovations, especially in polluting industries. On average, the adoption of an environmental orientation increases the probability of innovating by 3.68 percentage points. Furthermore, the results suggest that the degree of gender diversity within the R&D team positively moderates the relationship between environmental orientation and product innovation. Lastly, results provide evidence that firm size increases the positive effect of environmental orientation on innovation performance, especially in service sectors.