Sixteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

As sustainability gains attention, the public and private sectors use different approaches to address sustainability issues in their activities. In order to achieve fast legitimacy, some firms imitate competitors as well as leading institutions. Moreover, the great tension between legitimation and imitation has been laying in how firms can still be legit while they differentiate from their competitors, in order to achieve a competitive position. According to some previous studies, if the benefits of imitation outweigh the costs, then a firm should imitate its peers. In fact, they have highlighted the role of leading institutions that enhance social performance while positively affecting the economic performance (in a context of rapidly shifting social trends). Empirically, the research proposed to analyse how the phenomena of imitation from a green strategic management perspective could affect firms’ performance in three macro sectors: Energy, Industrials, and Technology. Under the notion of effectiveness and legitimacy of sustainability initiatives, framed as Sustainability reports through ESG indicators (economic, environmental, social, and governance data) in a 10 years period. In order to establish if sustainability can be considered a competitive advantage, green patents would be used as a proxy of differentiation for firms as they are per se difficult to imitate. The findings seek to contribute to institutional theory development and establish new propositions related to the debate about sustainability and imitation. The research proposed is quantitative, and based on Deephouse (1999) statistical model. It uses the Bloomberg database and the European Patent Office, using its Global Patent Index.