| Firms are increasingly operating in highly competitive markets in which they encounter pressure from a cadre of stakeholders to innovate and behave in socially and environmentally responsible ways. While there has been a great deal of work conducted to investigate and explain innovation as well as social and environmental behavior, they are typically investigated as separate issues that a firm must address. With this dissertation I develop two studies that take into account both the choices that a firm makes to act in a socially and environmentally responsible manner and invest in innovation. I put forth two models that help explain some of the motivations behind a firm's innovation adoption and investment behavior and make contributions to the growing entrepreneurship, innovation, and corporate social responsibility/performance (CSR/CSP) literatures.;In Essay 1, "I Don't Want to be Green: The Effects of Prosocial Motivation on Environmental Innovation Rejection Decisions by Businesses," I investigate why firms resist the adoption of environment-friendly technological innovations -- even as they face growing consumer pressure, higher costs, and stricter government oversight if they don't. Specifically, I use conjoint analysis to examine how business owners weigh the trade-offs associated with environment-friendly innovations.;In Essay 2, "Do Corporate Social and Environmental Behaviors Affect Investment in Innovation?," I draw on the knowledge-based view of the firm to pursue an answer to an important question in the innovation and CSR/CSP literatures -- Does a firm's social and environmental behaviors affect investment in innovation? Specifically, I use secondary data to test whether firms differ significantly in their ability to acquire, utilize and transfer internal and external corporate social and environmental knowledge in the innovation process. |
