The effect of environmental regulations and costumer pressure on the green innovative performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (Case study: Mahdasht industrial town)

Legislation of environmental regulations together with growth in awareness and sensitivity of costumers with respect to environmental performance have made the organizations to implement green innovations in products, processes and management systems. This causes better performance and a step towards keeping environment safe. The present research tries to study the influence of environmental regulations and costumers’ pressure on green innovative performance of small and medium-sized enterprises and to offer necessary solutions. For this purpose, first we review the theoretical foundations and research background, then the conceptual model and research hypotheses are tested using Smart PLS software, and finally modelling of structural equations based on partial least squares is implemented. The conceptual model indicates that the customers’ pressure and environmental regulation have effect on the green innovative performance through the intermediate variables including top management support, R&D, and environmental management system. The results show that environmental regulations (0.196) and customers’ pressure (0.407-0.259) affect the green innovative performance; the former through environmental management system mediators (0.377), and the latter through top management support (0.562) and environmental management system (0.377).