| Ever since a publication in the Brundtland Report(United Nations,1987),a spark of interest and discussion has ignited research and reforms to the path for sustainability and eco-innovation on a global scale.Within recent decades the topic of greener production and methods have gained so much attention,especially by researchers and governments,that it is escalating to levels of action being sought out,seeking social,economic,and environmental transitions for business models to be more sustainable and for green product innovation.This phenomenon is referred to as sustainable innovation.In our modern world we are more connected than ever before,through business,technology and trade.Fostering sustainable business interests in markets worldwide would allow opportunities to achieve sustainability goals,even for government policies.Since business and sustainability are not mutually exclusive,the relationship of entrepreneurial orientation and sustainable orientation are presenting new challenges to organizations and businesses.With the increase debate over environmental problems,protections,and resource management,this hot-topic has created such interest among many scholars in entrepreneurship and environmental management literature.The purpose of this paper is to build empirical research on how Sustainable Entrepreneurship Orientation(SEO)impacts sustainable innovation(SI),through the moderator of Technology Management Capability(TMC),as well as being mediated by exploitative and explorative capabilities.In recent years,Entrepreneurial Orientation has been defined in the literature as a concept of initiative.This concept helps to explain how firms conduct themselves while pursuing business opportunities.These engagements create frameworks for entrepreneurial activity and sustainable innovation.Environmental initiatives for social,economic and environmental benefits are ideally perpetuated for sustainable and entrepreneurial practices.This will allow enterprises to not only maintain business for a longer period of time,but will also reduce the negative environmental burden and impact.Exploitative capability specializes in deepening one’s knowledge of preexisting assets,products and services in order to enrich and expand their customer value,while providing incremental innovation opportunities for firms.Exploration capability also provides innovation opportunities,but more radically than its counterpart.It utilizes the pursuit of knowledge that does not yet exist within a firm,which helps to create new customer value by means of new product development and innovation.This search also requires growth in firm’s technological trajectory.Since in everyday life the integration of mass-use technology is increasing,Technology Management Capability(TMC)and R&D management have been well acknowledged as the major resources for achieving high innovation performance,even though that innovation may not always be technologically based.Sustainable innovation addresses both dimensions of “green innovation” and longevity for firms.SEO’s opportunity-based strategy will help to create entrepreneurial ventures and assumed to facilitate sustainable innovative success.This research aims to answer questions based on the relationships of these variables,specifically SEO’s impact on SI,while being mediated by exploitative and explorative capabilities,which are moderated by TMC.We conducted our research by using a survey to collected data from United States of America firms,primarily technology-based enterprises.The key informants were managers of these firms who are intimately involved with technology and sustainable innovation,while also knowledgeable about the current competition in the marketplace.With a valid sample size of 134,we analyzed the data to see if there were any significant results between relationships and roles of the variables.The data was analyzed using validity(KMO and Bartlett’s Test)and reliability tests,in addition with regression analysis.Our results indicate the following:(1)SEO has a positive impact on sustainable innovation.(2)Exploitative capability shows a positive mediating role between SEO and SI.(3)Exploration capability also displayed a positive mediating role between SEO and SI.(4)TMC plays positive moderating roles between exploitative capability’s and(5)exploration capability’s impact on sustainable innovation.With these results we discuss and provide recommendations for American firms:(1)SEO effectively helps to transform business models to become more green,eco-focused,and sustainable,while still providing profitable value creation.American firms can highly benefit from this strategic orientation,so the promotion of SEO is crucial for sustainability.(2)Exploitative capability has a positive mediating role between SEO and SI,due to its important benefits in enhancing firm’s product and sustainable innovation.American firms can highly benefit from proper use of exploitative capability,so the promotion of this capability is ideal.(3)Explorative capability has a positive mediating role between SEO and SI,primarily due to its benefits in enhancing firm’s radical innovation.Product and service innovation for firms require full utilization of their exploitative and explorative capabilities based on existing knowledge and skills,in order to improve products and enhance services to expand and participate in market competition.(4)As a moderator,TMC plays a positive role in both exploitative and explorative capabilities.The development and implementation of TMC has fundamental importance for realizing the enormous scientific and technological potential that has been invented,created and accumulated in the United States of America.As the world is rapidly adopting technology in everyday life,American firms can benefit from the promotion of this capability.These research findings provide practical implications for American firms,CEOs,top managers and managers to implement and improve sustainable business orientation practices through effective innovation strategies.Our research results provide evidence that sustainable innovation has significant correlation SEO and TMC,along with exploitative and explorative capabilities,because sustainable innovation must be a transformative system.Our research also contributes to other works that involve companies’ TMC and firm’s performance.The results indicate that,especially in technology-based industries,technology management capability positively correlates to innovation success and performance.The increase in global concern for environmental protection and climate change is a central,motivational factor for businesses and governments alike to take progressive action.With this in mind,sustainable innovation may not only be a chosen capability,but rather a mandatory one.Our study has several limitations,which also provides directions for future research.First,during data collection,we faced problems with cooperation with some companies.Some did not wish to disclose information about business activities.Therefore,the amount of our collected survey sample is a little bit small.For future studies and research,we will collect a larger sample,perhaps from other countries’ companies too.Second,this study primarily selected technology firms in the United States,which neglected collecting significant amount of data other industries,as the sample.Therefore,the relationships between SEO,exploitative and explorative capabilities,TMC,and SI might be different among other firms and industries,for example,machinery or manufacturing.Future research can investigate a multitude of firms in different industries and contexts separately for our findings.Third,although we tried to assemble a comprehensive data set,we only included American firms in our empirical analysis.Therefore,potential cultural limitations may exist that preclude generalizing our findings in other countries.Replication in other countries’ settings would provide a more complete understanding of the relationships among the variables used in this research,which may identify differences that may be attributable to cultural or business environment differences. |
