Sarango-Lalangui Paul, Castillo-Vergara Mauricio, Carrasco-Carvajal Omar, Durendez Antonio
Department of Business Science, Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL), Loja, Ecuador.
Faculty of Economy and Business, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago, Chile.
Heliyon. 2023 Sep 13;9(9):e20096. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20096. eCollection 2023 Sep.
Sustainable development has emerged as a crucial factor enhancing the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in light of societal expectations and government regulations. Within this context, innovation assumes a significant role in this challenge, particularly for smaller companies facing greater obstacles in fostering innovation. These constraints have prompted both internal and external innovation initiatives, commonly referred to as open innovation. In this article, we scrutinize the influence of environmental practices on innovation endeavors, specifically examining whether the innovation strategy and its implementation facilitate the advancement of open innovation within SMEs. Furthermore, we explore the potential moderating effect of firm owners' gender on these relationships. The research model is validated using data from 543 companies in Ecuador, employing the partial least squares (PLS) method. The findings elucidate how environmental sustainability can promote the adoption of open innovation practices, with the innovation strategy and its implementation acting as mediators in this relationship. The impact of gender only manifests in the innovation strategy pertaining to environmental sustainability. In conclusion, open innovation stemming from the pivotal role of environmental sustainability emerges as a critical driver in augmenting innovation performance across various dimensions, such as quality, growth, efficiency, process enhancement, organizational practices, employee motivation, and acquisition of new product/service skills.
鉴于社会期望和政府法规，可持续发展已成为提升中小企业竞争力的关键因素。在此背景下，创新在这一挑战中发挥着重要作用，尤其是对于在推动创新方面面临更大障碍的小公司而言。这些限制促使了内部和外部创新举措的出现，通常被称为开放式创新。在本文中，我们仔细研究环境实践对创新努力的影响，具体考察创新战略及其实施是否有助于中小企业推进开放式创新。此外，我们还探讨了企业所有者性别对这些关系的潜在调节作用。使用来自厄瓜多尔543家公司的数据，采用偏最小二乘法（PLS）对研究模型进行了验证。研究结果阐明了环境可持续性如何促进开放式创新实践的采用，其中创新战略及其实施在这种关系中起到中介作用。性别的影响仅体现在与环境可持续性相关的创新战略中。总之，源于环境可持续性关键作用的开放式创新成为提升创新绩效各个维度（如质量、增长、效率、流程改进、组织实践、员工激励以及获取新产品/服务技能）的关键驱动力。
