• Energy Research

With intensifying competition in the financial system, new strategic applications are constantly being devised in the search for greater efficiency. In consequence, decisions are commonly based on locating and retaining market segments with high added value, and those which fail to supply the profitability required by the market are “excluded”. The aim of this study is to analyse the research advances made in the field of financial inclusion and the main lines of investigation currently being addressed by means of a bibliometric analysis. Among the scientific community, there is growing interest in this study area. The most assiduous in this respect are SA Asongu (the most productive author), Enterprise Development and Microfinance (the journal that has published the most articles in this field), Makerere University, Uganda (the most productive institution) and India (the country where most recent studies have taken place). Foreseeably inspiring future research, there is currently great interest in developing a more accessible financial system, especially through the use of digital money (Fintech) as an instrument to promote financial inclusion. For all this, a line of research is proposed that also includes the proposals from the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Examining the knowledge transfer process in sustainable contexts, we identified various gaps, which we analyzed in this study. First, we compare the temporal context of firms with eco-innovation strategies before and after the financial crisis of the first decade of the 21st century. Second, we analyze the firms’ knowledge transfer, from the use of knowledge sources to innovation through intellectual property. Third, we consider the influence of firm age on firms with eco-innovation goals and the influence of size on intellectual property. We used data from a sample of 3004 firms prepared by the Spanish National Statistics Institute for two different time periods: 2009 and 2014. Our results suggest that firms that achieve sustainable innovations do not show large differences in behavior in the two economic periods. We found that knowledge in firms with eco-innovation goals is transferred through intellectual property. The results show that firm age and size influence these processes during the years analyzed and thus have various implications for theory and for small firms, which are generally family firms. Small and family firms should strengthen their registration of intellectual property so that their knowledge transfer process ends in innovations for both the firm and the market.

In recent years, firms’ sustainable management has been considered a key factor in the achievement of profits, but few studies analyze the antecedents and effects of eco-innovation. Our study proposes a model to analyze the factors that affect eco-innovation, as well as eco-innovation’s effects on dynamic ambidexterity. To pursue this goal, we developed a research model with panel data from 449 firms over five years from the telecom industry and tested the model using structural equations and partial least squares (PLS). Our results demonstrate the influence of R&D expenditure on eco-innovation. They show a slightly ordered sequence of exploration and exploitation results, indicating that some equilibrium between the two orientations is necessary. The study thus shows that eco-innovation facilitates ambidexterity in that exploration and exploitation alternate dynamically in the search for economic profit.