Barriers to Environmental Innovation in SMEs: Empirical Evidence from French Firms

Abstract

Recent literature has explored the determinants of environmental innovation (EI) but has rarely addressed obstacles to this innovation. To our knowledge, no previous study accounts for the antecedents of EI to explore the various perceived barriers to EI for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Noting the importance of SMEs in European economies, this article identifies the extent to which SMEs perceive there to be barriers to EI and considers their type, number, and intensity. With a merged data set of 435 French SMEs, we investigate different perceptions of environmentally innovative SMEs, compared with those of technologically innovative SMEs and non-innovative ones, using a multiple treatment model that integrates the antecedents. We thereby analyze SME CEOs’ perceptions of barriers to EI. The barriers are not only more numerous but also more important for SMEs that engage in EI activity compared with those that introduce only technological innovation (TI) or those that do not undertake any innovation activity (NI – non-innovation).