The open eco-innovation mode. An empirical investigation of eleven European countries

This paper deals with the open innovation mode in the environmental realm and investigates the effectsthat knowledge sourcing has on the environmental innovations (EIs) of firms. Using the Community Inno-vation Survey (CIS) 2006–2008, we refer to the firm’s probability of both introducing an EI and extendingthe number of EI-typologies adopted. We estimate the impact of the ‘depth’ and ‘breadth’ of knowl-edge sourcing. In addition, we test for the moderating role of the firm’s absorptive capacity. Knowledgesourcing has a positive impact on both types of EI-performance. However, a broad sourcing strategyreveals a threshold above which the propensity to introduce an EI diminishes. Cognitive constraints inprocessing knowledge inputs that are too diverse may explain this result. Absorptive capacity generallyhelps firms to turn broadly sourced external knowledge into EI. However, internal innovation capabil-ities and knowledge socialization mechanisms seem to diminish the EI impact of knowledge sourcedthrough deep external interactions. The possibility of mismatches between the management of internaland external knowledge, and of problems in distributing the decision-makers’ attention between thetwo, may explain this result. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.