What Fosters Resource-Efficient Innovations? Empirical Evidence from European SMEs through a Micro, Meso, and Macro Perspective

Due to the changing climate, an increasing number of organizations are focusing on Resource-Efficient Innovations (REI). This paper investigates a currently missing mul-tilevel perspective on the determinants of REI at the micro (firm), meso (intersectoral), and macro (policy) levels. Based on a comprehensive review of the literature and ex-isting gaps, the REI framework, comprising three levels and six categories (financial, technical, organizational, market, collaboration, and legal) with fourteen unique driv-ers and ten barriers, has been developed. Theoretically, the REI framework is grounded in the Porter hypothesis. To test the framework, novel data collected on more than 13,000 European SMEs are employed. The baseline results using logit regression em-pirically validate the framework, and the moderation analysis demonstrates an inter-play among the three levels. In addition to financial resources and technical expertise, meso-level cooperation is one of the most relevant factors for resource-efficient organ-izations. It arguably serves as an adhesive between micro and macro levels. Further-more, barriers – mainly located at the macro-level – may also accelerate the REI sup-porting the dynamic implications of the Porter hypothesis. Therefore, this paper pro-vides valuable new strategic insights for organizations aiming to foster REI.