Abstract

In this review, we interrogate the unexplored nexus between corporate governance and environmental innovation. Based on our systematic literature review, coupled with a bibliometric analysis of 232 scholarly articles, we propose an integrative framework which explains the mechanisms that influence environmental innovation. The advanced framework centers on and connects the junctions of ownership and environmental policy with corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, and sustainability, which generate outcomes relevant to business strategy, capabilities, resources, and, ultimately, environmental innovation. We uncover future research directions at the strategic actor level and for research on outcomes from corporate governance. Our suggestions for further inquiries in the field are structured by strategic actor type and specific outcome. The review cross-fertilizes management theories, including institutional theory, stakeholder theory, resource-based view, and agency theory, with innovation theories, and also provides methodological recommendations for conducting research on the intersection of corporate governance and environmental innovation. Finally, we contribute to emerging research on the purpose-driven firm by theorizing how corporate governance practices could lead to environmental innovation in conjunction with for-profit optimization. Methodologically, we advance knowledge on how to conduct an interdisciplinary systematic literature review and connect distinct fields of inquiry via bibliometric analysis and clustering.