Proactive Environmental Strategy and Innovation Capability: Evidence from Data on Russian Firms

The current research is aimed at the investigation of the relationship between proactive environmental strategy and innovation capability of a firm. World Bank Russia 2019 Enterprise Survey dataset, consisting of different-sized firms and a variety of sectors, is used to confirm the expectations regarding the positive significant link between innovation capability and proactive environmental strategy in the Russian context. The research is grounded on the resource-based view theory and a number of empirical studies on the topic. Based on the analysis of 710 Russian firms, it can be stated that environmentally proactive companies have higher process innovation capability, than firms with reactive environmental strategies or no environmental strategies at all; however, there is no difference in terms of product innovation capability.