The moderation of institutional mimicry on eco-innovation performance: evidence from Brazil

The moderating force that institutional pressures can exert on the relationship between eco-innovation and performance has received little attention. In In this context, the present study aims to investigate the relationship between eco-innovation and environmental and financial performance, as well as the moderating role of institutional mimetic pressure in this relationship. We surveyed 175 brazilian companies from the organic production sector. For the analysis, we used Structural Equation Modeling to verify the relationship between the variables. The main results point to (i) a positive relationship between eco-innovation and environmental performance; (ii) the relationship between eco-innovation and financial performance does not occurs directly, but indirectly, due to environmental performance; and (iii) mimetic pressure attenuates the influence of eco-innovation on environmental and financial performance. This finding had not yet been verified in the literature on innovation, an unprecedented contribution of this work. Therefore, business managers can use the findings to implement innovation management systems under eco-innovative perspectives to produce goods with less environmental impact.