BACKING ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATIONS THROUGH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION. EMPIRICAL ANALYSES OF INNOVATION-RELATED COMPLEMENTARITY IN FIRMS

摘要

The paper tests empirically whether various types of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) adoption\ud\udand other innovation practices (techno-organisational change and training courses) are complementary inputs with \ud\udrespect to the adoption of specific environmental innovations (EI). The analysis is based on original survey data for a \ud\udlarge industrial Italian region (Emilia-Romagna), which offer various views on ICT and EI relationships. This survey \ud\udcontains information on the adoption of environmental innovations and some detailed information on ICT issues and \ud\udother technological-organisational processes. Our main findings suggest that, overall, complementarity does not seem \ud\udto characterize the relationship between ICT and other innovation processes as a force behind environmental \ud\udinnovation, but some important exceptions emerge. Complementarities exists, for instance, between technological \ud\udinnovation and both adoption of ICT management systems and ICT for cooperation with clients. Interestingly, \ud\udrestricting the analysis to a sub-sample of more polluting firm, both complementarity and substitutability emerge \ud\udmore evidently.