Financial Constraints and Multilevel Perspective: The Case of the Italian Manufacturing Enterprises

Following a multi-level perspective (MLP), a sustainability transition is the consequence of destabilization pressures from the landscape level that are exerted towards the current unsustainable regime contributing thus to the emergence of niche-level eco-innovations (EI). However, the existence of financial barriers to eco-innovative companies may hinder the development and diffusion of EIs at regime level, jeopardising the creation of windows of opportunity that are necessary for niche-level innovations to succeed. In this framework, the present paper investigates to what extent financial constraints are hampering the eco-innovative investments at regime level, by employing an ad hoc designed survey addressed to a sample of Italian manufacturing enterprises. Results reveal the existence of significant financial barriers to eco-innovative companies which are hindering the development and adoption of incremental technological EIs and organizational EIs at regime level, delaying the transition towards a more sustainable regime. Moreover, findings suggest that environmental reputation of companies can positively contribute to reducing asymmetric information in eco-innovative investments, relieving thus the financial constraints faced by eco-innovative enterprises