Is the impact of sustainability exploration on firm economic return so obvious? The case of internationalized Spanish firms operating in high-tech and low-tech industries

Abstract

This study aims to help to bridge the innovation and sustainability literature by assessing the impact of sustainability exploration on the economic return of internationalized Spanish firms. We apply partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to data from a sample of 156 internationalized Spanish firms. The results suggest that sustainability exploration by itself does not have a positive impact on economic return, which suggests that integration between sustainability exploration and sustainability exploitation might be the key to achieve the potential of sustainable innovation fully. In this line, the impact of sustainability exploration on economic return is not more significant for firms operating in high-technology industries compared to those operating in low-technology industries, which sheds some light into the debate on trade-offs in corporate sustainability