Shedding light on the determinants of eco-innovation: A meta-analytic study

In the past decade a stream of studies has analyzed the determinants of eco‐innovation. Four main clusters of drivers have been identified in the literature: “technology push,” “market pull,” “regulatory push‐pull,” and “firm specific factors.” Nevertheless, the empirical quantitative and comparative analysis of those clusters is rare, scattered and inconclusive. This article aims to fill this gap by analyzing the determinants of eco‐innovation on the basis of a meta‐analytic study of quantitative empirical studies published over the period 2006 to 2017—a meta‐analysis which accounts for a total of 211,123 firms. The findings show that firms with collaborative networks and/or more environmental concern are more prone to eco‐innovate, emphasizing the role of “technology push” as the main cluster of determinants, regardless of whether a typology of eco‐innovation is included as a moderator in the meta‐analysis. Based on the results of the meta‐analytic study, the paper discusses several courses of action to foster eco‐innovation and achieve environmental benefits.