Exploring Sustainable Product Innovation in Chinese SMEs During the Covid‑19 Crisis

Abstract

[EN] The sudden outbreak of Covid-19 has thrown lives out of balance around the world, and the topic of sustainability is more worthy of study than ever. The purpose of this study is to analyze sustainable innovation from a triple end result (financial, environmental, and social) to help companies become more sustainable over time and to improve the way in which they face economic, natural, and humanitarian crises. This study combines sustainable innovation and the triple bottom line to explore the factors that move firms toward sustainable product innovation based on a natural- resource-based view and stakeholder theory as the theoretical framework. The research is based on a powerful quantitative methodology adapted to the research design, such as a partial least squares structural equation model, to validate and analyze the implementation of sustainable innovation by senior managers of 128 small and medium-sized companies in 11 different sectors in the Chinese context. The empirical results indicate that corporate profitability is one driving factor in sustainable product innovation, in addition to environmental and social sustainability, all of which contribute to corporate economic efficiency. Although this paper is based on cross-sectional data, the findings could encourage researchers to investigate the effects of other environmental, social, and financial variables with different types of sustainable innovation further the product. The management must promote environmental and social sustainability together with corporate profitability since it is clear how all of them promote the innovation of sustainable products. The main contribution of this research is a new empirical evidence on the joint influence of environmental, social, and economic development on sustainable product innovation. In addition, the study includes valuable data in an intermediate phase (July and August 2021) of the Covid-19 pandemic in the Chinese context. Evidence reveals that companies that have taken a triple bottom line approach to innovation even in adverse pandemic and post-pandemic contexts have succeeded in introducing sustainable product innovations on the market.