Ha, Y.J. orcid.org/0000-0002-3576-2772 and Wei, Y. (2019) Dual isomorphic mechanisms and the role of a transnational agent: How foreign MNEs affect environmental innovation in domestic firms. Multinational Business Review, 27 (3). pp. 266-284. ISSN 1525-383X
Abstract
Purpose
Corporate environmental innovation (CEI) is a proactive type of response to increasing public scrutiny regarding firms’ environmental performance. While past studies have overwhelmingly focused on coercive mechanisms and assumed a closed national institutional field, less attention has been given to non-coercive and transnational inter-firm mimetic mechanisms. This paper aims to investigate the joint effect of coercive isomorphic mechanisms from domestic institutions and mimetic isomorphic mechanisms from foreign multinational enterprises (MNE) on CEI adoption in domestic firms.
Design/methodology/approach
The study’s empirical analysis is based on data from 1,967 firms from the 2010 Korean Innovation Survey, as well as other official statistics.
Findings
This study reports the following results: the direct effects of domestic institutions on CEI adoption in domestic firms vary according to institution type; foreign MNEs have a positive effect, whether using global or local CEI strategies; and the positive effect of foreign MNEs strengthens when the stringency of domestic environmental regulation increases.
Originality/value
This paper shows that CEI diffusion is driven by both coercive institutional pressures and inter-firm mimetic mechanisms, including their joint effects. Foreign MNEs act as boundary-spanners that activate a dual isomorphic mechanism, affecting social as well as economic development in host countries. Finally, evidence of interaction between domestic coercive and transnational mimetic mechanisms supports the authors’ contention that national institutional fields are increasingly interconnected.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited. This is an author-produced version of a paper subsequently published in Multinational Business Review. This version is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. You may not use the material for commercial purposes. |
Keywords: | South Korea; MNE; Boundary-spanner; Coercive isomorphism; Corporate environmental innovation; Mimetic isomorphism |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Management School (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 27 Jan 2022 14:53 |
Last Modified: | 27 Jan 2022 14:53 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Emerald |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1108/mbr-06-2017-0035 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:182996 |