Strategic orientations and responsible innovation in SMEs: The moderating effects of environmental turbulence

Abstract The turbulent business environment makes small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) more vulnerable, and their sustainable development faces severe challenges. Responsible innovation, as a new management paradigm that balances profit growth and social value, plays an important role in promoting enterprise's risk resistance and sustainable development. However, there are still few existing research on how to stimulate enterprises to implement responsible innovation. Based on the dynamic capability theory (DCT) and contingency theory, this study explores how strategic orientations affect responsible innovation under various degrees of environmental turbulence. Hierarchical regression was used to test the conceptual model based on data collected from 194 Chinese SMEs. The results indicate that strategic orientations (digital and environmental orientations) positively affect responsible innovation, and environmental orientation plays a stronger role in promoting responsible innovation than digital orientation. Market and technological turbulences play positive moderating roles in the relationship between digital orientation and responsible innovation, while negatively moderating the relationship between environmental orientation and responsible innovation. These findings are helpful to enrich the literature on strategic orientation and responsible innovation and provide practical implications for guiding SMEs to implement responsible innovation.