Medio ambiente e innovación en empresas de Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Querétaro y San Luis Potosí, México.

In this paper we studied the effect of two voluntary environmental programs (ISO 14001 and Clean Industry) on product, process, organisational and marketing innovation of companies located in Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Queretaro and San Luis Potosi. The biprobit probabilistic method was used, and a sample of 1,663 firms from the four entities and which were extracted from the Encuesta sobre Investigacion y Desarrollo Tecnologico 2014. The results reveal that there is a positive and significant effect on the probability that companies in this region innovate in products, process, organisational or marketing when they adopt the ISO 14001 standard or the Clean Industry certification. The finding strengthens the hypothesis that voluntary environmental instruments, such as the ISO 14001 standard and the Clean Industry certification, favor innovation activities in companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]