Capacidade de inovação moderada pelas pressões institucionais na obtenção de performance em ecoinovação

Abstract

We analyzed three important constructs in this study: capacity for innovation, eco-innovation and institutional pressure. The ability to innovate relates to an organization's ability to make innovations in their product, process or service innovations. Eco-innovations are innovations that aim to reduce the impact on the environment. These impacts can be reduction of the emission of gases, waste of water and solid waste, reduction of the consumption of hazardous / harmful / toxic materials and others. Institutional pressures come from the new institutional theory and propose that organizations seeking to legitimize become equal (isomorphism), the three institutional pressures are normative, mimetic and coercive. Thus, this research established as a general objective to verify if the institutional pressures are moderating forces in the relation between capacity of innovation and implantation of practices of eco-innovation to obtain financial and environmental performances. The sector chosen for this research was agro industrial sector of organic production in Brazil. And the research problem was: Are institutional pressures moderating forces in the relationship between capacity for innovation and implementation of eco-innovation practices to achieve financial and environmental performance? Three models were tested in this study: Model 1 with all the companies of the sample; Model 2 with the group of companies that the products and processes met the national and international requirements and finally the Model 3 with the group of companies that the products only serve national requirements and do not meet international requirements. For the data collection, a survey was carried out with 192 agro industries of organic production throughout Brazil. Analyzes were conducted through the modeling of structural equations using the software SmartPLS 2.0. The results of the research showed that, for the three Models tested, there is no positive and significant relationship between the capacity of innovation and eco-innovation when the moderators are present in the model. They also showed that only the normative pressure in Model 2 moderates the relationship between innovation capacity and eco-innovation. The other pressures evaluated did not present a moderation relationship in the relation studied, considering all the models explored. Finally, with respect to environmental and financial performance, this research showed a positive and significant relationship between eco-innovation and environmental performance in all three models tested. However, there is no direct relationship between eco-innovation and financial performance, but rather a mediation relationship through environmental performance. It stands out the Model 2 where the mediation was total and in the other two models the mediation was partial.