For several years, companies have made strategic changes to align with sustainable development principles by developing eco‐innovations. While research consistently highlights the positive impact of eco‐innovations on organisational performance, the factors driving these initiatives—particularly within small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs)—remain less clear. This inconsistency is due to the heterogeneity of SMEs and their high sensitivity to external contexts. To address this issue, our study delves into the role of competencies, technological factors and networking in shaping the environmental innovation capabilities of a homogeneous SME population in terms of sector, age, size, legal status, geographical location and orientation towards innovation. Using the partial least squares approach, we find that competencies and technological factors are the key drivers of eco‐innovation, while networking shows no significant effect. These findings contribute to the existing literature by underlining the fundamental importance of internal skills and technological adoption for fostering eco‐innovation. They also suggest that networking becomes essential in environments lacking robust public and private support mechanisms for SME growth. Considering the rapid and turbulent changes, driven by the dual needs of sustainability and competitiveness, our results offer useful and critical advice for policymakers to define more appropriate and effective policies.

中文翻译：

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支持小企业内部环境创新能力出现的过程：实证调查


几年来，公司通过开发生态创新进行了战略变革，以符合可持续发展原则。虽然研究一直强调生态创新对组织绩效的积极影响，但推动这些举措的因素——尤其是在中小企业 （SME） 内部——仍然不太清楚。这种不一致是由于中小企业的异质性及其对外部环境的高度敏感性。为了解决这个问题，我们的研究深入探讨了能力、技术因素和网络在塑造同质中小企业群体的环境创新能力方面的作用，包括部门、年龄、规模、法律地位、地理位置和创新取向。使用偏最小二乘法，我们发现能力和技术因素是生态创新的关键驱动力，而网络没有显示出显着影响。这些发现强调了内部技能和技术采用对促进生态创新的根本重要性，从而为现有文献做出了贡献。他们还建议，在缺乏强大的公共和私人支持机制促进中小企业发展的环境中，网络变得至关重要。考虑到在可持续性和竞争力的双重需求推动下，快速而动荡的变化，我们的结果为政策制定者提供了有用和重要的建议，以制定更合适和有效的政策。