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Eco-innovation contributes to a more sustainable environment through the development of green technologies. In this context, eco-innovations are capable of improving the performance of organizations in order to reduce environmental and social impacts. Knowing the behavior of studies on eco-innovation can help researchers in understanding the scientific and intellectual structure of the field. Therefore, the general objective of this research is to evaluate the literature on eco-innovation on the world stage from bibliometric and Scientometric analysis, with the help of CiteSpace software. The results show a highly fruitful, dynamic, and rapidly expanding field of studies, marked by a high degree of interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity. The conclusions of the research reveal the trends for studies in the area, from the understanding of the behavior of the field of studies in eco-innovation.

This research aimed to understand the direct influence of a firm's alliance portfolio diversity on its product and process innovation performance and the indirect influence of the former on financi...

The main aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of a firm’s alliance portfolio diversity and its barriers to innovation on the successful implementation of sustainable business model innovation. To achieve this goal, we propose a conceptual model that operationalises the following constructs: sustainable business model innovation, alliance portfolio diversity, and barriers to innovation. Additionally, the proposed model considers the moderating influence of absorptive capacity on the relationship between alliance portfolio diversity and sustainable business model innovation. The test of the model in 899 Chilean firms, using structural equation modelling, makes evident that alliance portfolio diversity has an inverted U-shaped impact on sustainable business model innovation, which is moderated by the firm’s absorptive capacity. Moreover, it indicates that the influence of the firm’s perception of barriers impacts sustainable business model innovation in different ways, depending on the nature of these barriers. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed.

With the discovery of the Pre-Salt reserves, exploration of oil and gas is being strongly extended in Brazil, contributing to the recent increase of the demand for drilling capabilities. This paper discusses the impact of this oil discovery by assessing the relationship among the growth of proven reserves, the financial position of firms, and patent applications in the Brazilian upstream oil and gas industry. We provide empirical evidence indicating that firms with a lower financial performance prior to the pre-salt discovery were more aggressive in increasing the number of patent filings addressing technologies of the upstream oil and gas domain.

RESUMO Contexto: um novo fluxo migratório de imigrantes brasileiros em Portugal é composto por indivíduos com maior capacidade financeira e empreendedora, alto nível de qualificação profissional ou por indivíduos que buscam maior qualificação (estudantes de mestrado e doutorado e pesquisadores). Objetivo: o estudo busca identificar possíveis variáveis prescritoras da intenção empreendedora dos imigrantes brasileiros em Portugal, evidenciando características desse grupo. Métodos: foram aplicados questionários do tipo survey com 667 respondentes brasileiros habitantes de Portugal, sendo utilizadas equações logit para análise dos dados, visando aferir a relação da intenção empreendedora com as variáveis sexo, idade na chegada, nível educacional, tempo de estada no país, status do visto estudante- trabalho -turista, status de pedido de cidadania - migração definitiva. Resultados: o artigo contribui de forma teórica ao evidenciar variáveis relacionadas à intenção de empreender em uma das maiores comunidades de imigrantes brasileiros em Portugal. Conclusão: os achados apontam para as seguintes variáveis que tiveram influência positiva na intenção de empreender: idade na chegada, tempo no país, visto de trabalho, nível de educação, visto de turista e reivindicar cidadania. Em termos de implicações práticas, o estudo poderá embasar mecanismos de fomento. ABSTRACT Context: a new migratory flow of Brazilian immigrants in Portugal is made up of individuals with greater financial and entrepreneurial capacity, a high level of professional qualification or individuals who seek higher qualification (masters and doctoral students and researchers). Objective: the study seeks to identify possible variables that prescribe the entrepreneurial intention of Brazilian immigrants in Portugal, showing characteristics of this group. Methods: survey questionnaires were applied to 667 Brazilian respondents, inhabitants of Portugal. It was used logit equations to analyze the data, in order to assess the relationship between entrepreneurial intention and the variables gender, age at arrival, educational level, length of stay in the country, status of student-tourist-work visa - citizenship application status - permanent migration. Results: the article contributes in a theoretical way by highlighting variables related to the intention to undertake in one of the largest communities of Brazilian immigrants in Portugal. Conclusion: the findings point to the following variables that had a positive influence on the intention to undertake: age at arrival, time in the country, work visa, education level, tourist visa and claim citizenship. In terms of practical implications, the study may support funding mechanisms.

This paper investigates the influence of internal R&D and patent applications by Latin American firms on firm performance. Patents should have a positive direct influence on performance. Internal R...

PurposeThis study investigates the influence of shared leadership on creativity and absorptive capacity in R&D teams. Based on theories of intragroup processes, it proposes that shared leadership positively affects such team outcomes up to a certain point, but at very high levels could cause loss of synergy and effectiveness, and therefore the relationship will follow an inverted U-shaped curve.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted with 76 independent teams from the R&D unit of one of the largest energy companies in Brazil. Data were collected with two questionnaires answered by external team managers and team members. The study applied structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses.FindingsResults indicate that there is a curvilinear relationship between shared leadership and external assessments of creativity and absorptive capacity in R&D teams. Although leadership shared among team members tends to favor creativity and realized absorptive capacity, at very high levels it yielded less than optimal outcomes. Team creativity had a direct positive effect on the teams' ability to explore and transform knowledge.Originality/valueThe study is the first empirical test of the influence of shared leadership on team creativity and absorptive capacity that proposes and confirms a quadratic effect. These results shed new light on the authors’ understanding of how intrateam leadership affects creative processes and absorptive capacity in the R&D context. These findings offer novel insights to inform practice as firms manage innovation performance.

This article shares the results of a systematic review of the literature on internationalization of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) based on bibliometric techniques. This review resulted in the identification of the main themes that have been the focus of researchers over 20 years, the emerging literature in the last 5 years, and a research agenda for future studies. It was also possible to propose a theoretical framework with the main influential factors in the various stages of the internationalization of SMEs. The analysis of 669 articles from 1998 to 2017 was carried out in two stages involving quantitative methods (bibliometric analysis and bibliographic coupling). The first analysis helped identify the main authors, journals, and countries that conducted research on internationalization of SMEs within these 20 years. In the second analysis, we divided the total period of 20 years into four sub-periods of 5 years, and the bibliographic coupling grouped similar articles in each period into research themes. The thematic clusters that emerged in the four sub-periods indicated that the more relevant themes of the cutting-edge literature were as follows: antecedents, patterns, and outcomes of the internationalization of SMEs. These themes were consistent with De Clercq et al.’s (2012) framework, making evident, by way of an exploratory method, the convergence of international business (IB) literature on the internationalization of SMEs, but with specific influential factors concerning SMEs.

This study examined companies from two different groups of countries in Central and Eastern Europe and their partnerships with the Government for the development of four types of innovation (product, process, organizational, and marketing). The research included ex-soviet republics (Eu members and non-members), and observed how each type of innovation affects the firms’ financial performance. A sample of 1,143 manufacturing SMEs from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) were tested using multiple regression and logit. Based on the absorptive capacity theory, the results show that manufacturing SMEs from EU-member countries have a higher absorptive capacity and take advantage of the EU’s innovation promotion programs to innovate. On the other hand, the SMEs from non EU-member states perceive a quicker effect of the innovations in financial performance, considering that there is a technological gap between the two groups (non EU-members are less developed). Also, the introduction of different types of innovations simultaneously boosts the performance of firms from non EU-member countries in the short run.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze to what extent spending on innovation activities and collaboration at the industry level affects the relationship between firm innovation and performance. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual model was proposed and empirically tested using multiple linear regression. The data were obtained from the Community Innovation Survey 2012, composing a sample of 890 Italian manufacturing firms. Findings The results provided full support for the positive moderating effect of intra-industry innovation spending and partial support for the positive moderating effect of intra-industry collaboration, both regarding the relationship between firm innovation spending and performance. Knowledge spillovers derived from intra-industry innovation spending and intra-industry collaboration affect firm performance. While this finding corroborates other studies that have found that the intra-industry R&D spending influences firms’ innovation and performance, it also contributes to improve the understanding about the complementarity of internal innovation activities and knowledge spillovers. Originality/value This study contributes to theory by filling a gap concerning the complementarity of internal innovation activities and the effect of knowledge spillovers to improve firm performance. Our findings suggested that intra-industry openness to collaboration and innovation spending, as proxies of knowledge spillovers, plays an important role in complementing firm level innovative efforts, even in the case of firms that spend less on innovation and have a lower degree of collaboration. This is especially relevant for small and medium enterprises, which can take advantage of access to the necessary information to overcome their internal resource constraints for R&D and innovation. The originality of these findings adds value in terms of furthering the understanding of this phenomenon.

Innovation exerts a central influence on the economy in every level: firm, industry, region, country and globally. Academics in business management have extensively explored the importance of the development of innovation for the firm, as well as for the industry. Studies at the regional level, in their turn, are more scarce. The primary goal of this paper is to verify the influence of product and process innovations introduced by the firms in a region on its economic development, considering as regions the states of Brazil. Using least square panel regression, we found that process innovation influences GDP growth positively after five years, corroborating the hypothesis that the effect of innovation is positive and takes some time to be perceived, with process innovation being faster than product innovation.

This paper intends to understand the relationships among internal and external R&D, innovation performance and financial performance in Brazilian manufacturing firms by testing a model using data from 2,810 firms. The study achieves this objective. We detected a positive relationship between external R&D from strategic alliances and innovation performance. Internal R&D, on the other hand, did not influence innovation performance directly; however, it positively moderated the relationship between strategic alliances and innovation performance, corroborating with the absorptive capacity theory. Contrary to our expectations, innovation performance had a negative influence on future financial performance. This was caused by the two-year lag between the measurement of the proxies of these two constructs, which was not long enough to allow identifying an increasing in revenues from new products and services. However, it captured the negative effect of redirecting marketing and sales resources for innovation activities, such as internal R&D, and of management costs of strategic alliances.

RESUMO: O objetivo do artigo é evidenciar o possível papel das agências de intercâmbio de estudantes como facilitadores de imigração. Visando entender o comportamento de consumo e os fatores que motivam os brasileiros a imigrar para Austrália, os pesquisadores realizaram uma survey com 608 consumidores, ligados a 10 grupos do Facebook, representando comunidades de brasileiros na Austrália. Por meio de um modelo de regressão logística, os pesquisadores escolheram a variável dependente do estudo para ser representada pelo imigrante permanente, sendo atribuído o valor 0 (zero) se os inquiridos não pretendessem viver na Austrália permanentemente ou 1 (um), no caso contrário. As variáveis independentes, representantes de fatores presentes no momento de sua chegada ao país, e que podem afetar a decisão de imigrar permanentemente, foram o gênero, a idade na chegada, a intenção futura de empreender, o visto de estudante e o nível educacional. Os resultados apontam para fatores estatisticamente significativos relacionados à imigração para a Austrália, com base nos perfis sociodemográficos dos respondentes. Também foram realizadas entrevistas em profundidade com um agente de viagens e residentes brasileiros. Como implicações práticas, o artigo evidencia o comportamento de consumo, motivações para imigração e fatores que levam à contratação de agências de intercâmbio estudantil. ABSTRACT: This paper highlights the possible role of student exchange agencies as facilitators of immigration. It aims to understand consumer behavior and the factors that motivate Brazilians to immigrate to Australia. The researchers conducted a survey of 608 consumers, linked to ten Facebook groups representing communities of Brazilians living in Australia. Using a logistic regression model, the researchers chose the study-dependent variable to be represented by the permanent immigrant, with a value of 0 (zero) if respondents did not intend to live in Australia permanently or 1 (one) if they did. The independent variables, representing factors present at the time of arrival in the country, and which may affect the decision to immigrate permanently, were sex, age on arrival, future intention to investing in the country, student visa, and level of education. The results point to statistically significant factors related to immigration to Australia, based on the respondents’ sociodemographic profiles. In-depth interviews were also conducted with a travel agent and Brazilian residents. As practical implications, the article highlights consumer behavior, motivations for immigration, and factors that lead to the hiring of student exchange agencies. RESUMEN: El objetivo del artículo es evidenciar el posible papel de las agencias de intercambio de estudiantes como facilitadores de inmigración. Con el objetivo de entender el comportamiento de consumo y los factores que motivan a los brasileños a inmigrar a Australia, los investigadores realizaron una encuesta con 608 consumidores, vinculados a 10 grupos de Facebook, representando a comunidades de brasileños en Australia. A través de un modelo de regresión logística, los investigadores eligieron la variable dependiente del estudio para ser representada por el inmigrante permanente, siendo atribuido el valor 0 (cero) si los encuestados no pretendían vivir en Australia permanentemente o 1 (uno), en el caso contrario. Las variables independientes, representantes de factores presentes en el momento de su llegada al país, y que pueden afectar la decisión de inmigrar permanentemente, fueron el género, la edad a la llegada, la intención futura de emprender, la visa de estudiante y el nivel educativo. Los resultados apuntan a factores estadísticamente significativos relacionados con la inmigración a Australia, sobre la base de los perfiles socio demográficos de los respondientes. También se realizaron entrevistas en profundidad con un agente de viajes y residentes brasileños. Como implicaciones prácticas, el artículo evidencia el comportamiento de consumo, motivaciones para la inmigración y factores que conduce a la contratación de agencias de intercambio estudiantil.

The aim of this study was to investigate how combining internal and external knowledge sources (KS) may influence product and process innovation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from developing economies in order to improve their financial performances (FPs). Previous research mostly supported that internal KS influence innovation directly as well as indirectly, moderating the relationship between external KS and innovation performance (IP), with this moderation being more prominent in the case of high-technology firms. These studies also supported that innovation influences FP more strongly in this type of firm. The present study proposes that, in developing countries, the opposite occurs. The moderation relationship of internal KS on the relationship between external KS and IP would be stronger in low-technology firms, as well as the positive effect of innovation on FP. We tested our propositions using a sample of 1551 Brazilian manufacturing SMEs controlling by the technological intensity of the industry and confirmed a good part of the proposed hypotheses.

This study examined companies from two different groups of countries in Central and Eastern Europe and their partnerships with the Government for the development of four types of innovation (product, process, organizational, and marketing). The research included ex-soviet republics (Eu members and non-members), and observed how each type of innovation affects the firms’ financial performance. A sample of 1,143 manufacturing SMEs from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) were tested using multiple regression and logit. Based on the absorptive capacity theory, the results show that manufacturing SMEs from EU-member countries have a higher absorptive capacity and take advantage of the EU’s innovation promotion programs to innovate. On the other hand, the SMEs from non EU-member states perceive a quicker effect of the innovations in financial performance, considering that there is a technological gap between the two groups (non EU-members are less developed). Also, the introduction of different types of innovations simultaneously boosts the performance of firms from non EU-member countries in the short run.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explain how internal and external sources of knowledge influence the innovation performance (IP) in Italian manufacturing firms and how different these relationships are for low-technology (LT) and high-technology (HT) firms. Design/methodology/approach The study proposed a model relating external knowledge, internal knowledge and IP that was tested using Bayesian structural equation modeling with a sample of Italian manufacturing firms of Community Innovation Survey 2010. It was run separately for high-tech firms (including HT and medium-HT aggregations of manufacturing industries of NACE Rev. 2) and low-tech firms (including LT and medium-LT aggregations). Findings The results showed a difference between high-tech and low-tech manufacturing firms in Italy. The investments to leverage internal knowledge sources are important for high-techs and not significant for low-techs. On the other hand, the level of external KS improves significantly the IP of low-techs and has a negative effect for high-techs. The level of absorptive capacity is central to improve the positive effect of the external knowledge on the IP for all firms, but it is still underdeveloped. Originality/value The effects of 2008 economic crisis hit the Italian manufacturing industry specifically hard and are still felt. Innovation is a solution for firms’ growth and Italy is considered a below-average innovator country in Europe. The study could identify important gaps in Italian manufacturing firms that hinder their innovative performance improvement.

PurposeThe shopping center (SC) industry in emerging countries has grown fast over the past decade; however, recently, it is showing signs of slowing down. Nevertheless, some SC-companies perform well. As those firms operate in alliance networks, relational opportunities and risks should be considered in their strategic analyses. Although there is a significant amount of research on SC from a marketing perspective, there is a dearth of research on strategic alliances from an SC management perspective. This paper aims at answering the following question: How do characteristics of the alliance networks of leading SC-companies contribute to their success by mitigating the structural threats the SC-industry in Brazil is facing?DesignThe case study method was adopted for analyzing two leading Brazilian SC-companies. Several data sources were used to allow for data triangulation. The lack of literature on strategic alliances and the SC-industry, as well as the research’s exploratory nature, justified this choice.FindingsThe research made evident that the SC-companies’ alliance network characteristics not only mitigate some of the structural industry threats but also enhance opportunities. It illustrated how firms can conduct a strategic analysis from a network perspective with the right tools. It also made evident how much more accurate the results of a comprehensive relational analysis are compared with traditional analyses that do not consider the strategic implications of relational factors.Practical implicationsThe research contributed to SC management by highlighting the importance of taking into account the network characteristics of their relationships with key partners and of considering these as alliances and not merely contractual arrangements.Originality/valueThere is a dearth of research on the strategic implications of alliances of firms that own and manage a portfolio of SCs, as well as of their relationships with other actors in the industry, such as retailers and real estate owners, from a network perspective.

This study examines the extent to which the intra-industry knowledge spillover and a firm’s alliance portfolio diversity have an effect on product innovation performance and the growth of different size of firms. A model was proposed and empirically tested using structural equation modelling with Bayesian estimation. The data was extracted from the Colombian innovation survey EDIT from 2011 to 2016 and comprised a sample of 913 manufacturing firms. The results demonstrated that less-developed and resource-scarce settings, such as Colombia, foster interfirm collaboration regardless of their size. Nevertheless, even when considered the positive and significant effect of collaboration, spillovers are the most relevant external knowledge source in explaining the product innovation performance and growth of small and medium firms. The findings also showed that knowledge spillovers can be detrimental to the large firms’ outcomes, possibly associated with a weaker appropriability regime and the loss of knowledge derived from outgoing spillovers.

Scholars have measured mall image, or mall attractiveness, since the mid-1970s. The models proposed are strongly rooted in the retail location and store image theories. However, apart from this common ground, the constructs adopted share few similarities with respect to the selection of mall attributes used to measure mall image. As a result, the extant literature is fragmented, offering several different models that are difficult to compare. This state-of-affairs is averse to the progress of knowledge, as it lacks external validity needed when different contexts are investigated, which is the case of shopping centres established in several different urban environments, countries and cultures. As a result of a systematic literature review, which employed bibliometric analysis and content analysis, both the roots and the frontier of research were identified. A list of mall image attributes was generated and identified those that seemed theoretically more relevant in capturing the construct of mall ...

This research investigated the complementarity of internal and external R&D for innovation development and the effect of innovation on the financial performance of European manufacturing firms. Using multigroup structural equation modeling, this study partially supported that internal and external R&D are complementary in firms from high-technology industries, whereas they are not in firms from low-technology industries. For the two groups of firms, both internal and external R&D separately had a positive effect on innovation performance. These results suggested that if low-tech firms, which had lower absorptive capacity than high-tech firms, want to improve their innovation performance in the long term, they should start prioritizing internal R&D to improve their absorptive capacity while achieving a short-term satisfactory innovation outcome. As absorptive capacity rises, more complex strategies balancing internal and external R&D should be adopted. Contrary to expectations, the empirical analysis indicated that innovation performance did not influence short-term financial performance for the whole sample. However, in countries more affected by the 2008 crisis (for instance, Baltic countries, Portugal and Spain), this effect was detected, indicating that innovation helped firms to recover faster.

Firms are increasingly engaging in alliance portfolios/networks – AP/Nets - to leverage their innovation performance –IP - and thus boost their competitiveness. Most studies, with a few exceptions especially from emerging countries, found a positive relationship between AP/Net and IP, depending on portfolio characteristics and firm absorptive capacity – AC. This article undertakes an empirical investigation of the AP/Net – IP relationship and AC´s potentially moderating role in this relationship in an emerging country: Brazil. Statistical testing of hypotheses regarding these relationships, and AC´s role, corroborated the exceptions. However, it confirmed how important it is that firms in an emerging country ensure a high level of AC to mitigate the negative effects of AP/Net diversity on IP. Some managerial and policy implications were also formulated.

The objective of this article is to present a model for analysing the role of absorptive capacity in the relationship between strategic alliance portfolios and innovation performance based on the results of bibliographic research on the subject published between 2000 and 2015. The research was carried out in three stages, involving both quantitative - bibliometric and bibliographic coupling - and qualitative content analyses. AP management capabilities were found to have a fundamental moderating role in the AP–IP relationship, and amongst these capabilities AC was highlighted by several authors. However, its role was found to vary according to AP characteristics, notably AP diversity – functional, geographic and institutional, but also centrality, size, stability and volume of resources, alliance and partner types as well as country type: emerging versus developed economies. This research formed the basis for the development of the model and the formulation of some propositions that focused on emerging countries.