Though sustainability exists as major objective of pursuing innovation, the effect of it on innovation performance is still unanswered. While the outcome of innovation should consider both input and output, moreover, studies on sustainable innovation are yet to consider the overall efficiency, but rather the performance itself. To fill the gap between the effect of sustainability as the objective of innovation and its innovation performance, and to bridge the hole between the outcome of sustainable innovation and its efficiency, we analyze the relationship between sustainability as innovation objective and innovation efficiency. We use 441 manufacturing companies in Korea from 2016 KIS data, and perform the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method to calculate efficiency score of each firm and tobit regression analysis to investigate the effect of sustainability as an objective of innovation on innovation efficiency. The results show that the objective of ‘environmental improvement’ negatively affects innovation efficiency, while ‘safety improvement’ positively affects the efficiency. On the contrary, the effect of ‘material and energy reduction’ as an objective of innovation on innovation efficiency is not verified. The implications, limitations, and guidelines for future research are presented.

“Reduction of material and energy consumption” (RMEC) exists as a major objective of innovation and it is proved to affect positively to innovation performance from previous literature. Though innovation should be measured in efficiency rather than performance itself, however, the relationship between material and energy reduction on innovation efficiency is still unanswered. In this paper, we analyzed the effect of RMEC on innovation efficiency considering both innovation inputs and outputs. We utilized data of 388 manufacturing enterprises in Korea, and performed data envelopment analysis (DEA) and tobit regression analysis. According to the result, firms show difference by industry type in terms of innovation efficiency and RMEC. Moreover, the effect of RMEC on innovation efficiency turned out to be negative. The result indicates a possibility that input used for innovation might overweigh the output yielded when firms pursue innovation for the RMEC.

The literature has two different perspectives on which innovation types should be implemented to achieve innovation performance; some argue that they should pursue process-oriented innovation, while others maintain that both product- and process-oriented innovation should be performed. Though innovation efficiency should be measured, which takes both input and output variables into account, the research so far has been measured only with the performance of the innovation. Accordingly, this study identifies which innovation type is the most advantageous in terms of innovation efficiency for the chemical firms. We use data of 64 Korean chemical companies from a 2016 Korean innovation survey and perform data envelopment analysis to calculate innovation efficiency. Kruskal–Wallis one-way ANOVA and bootstrap DEA were also conducted to compare the difference of innovation efficiency among groups, depending on which innovation types are oriented. The result shows that focusing on process innovation rather than both product and process innovation is more appropriate to achieve higher innovation efficiency, and pursuing process innovation rather than product innovation tends to achieve a higher level of innovation efficiency in the Korean chemical industry.