Prior studies revealed that government is key factor influencing firms' decisions about the implementation of environmental innovations and pursuit of sustainable development as well as shaping their environmental orientation. However, the role of firms' R&D within these processes remains unclear. This paper explores the relationship between firms' environmental regulation, R&D, environmental orientation, and environmental outputs to better understand the relationships and dynamics among them. We used the World Bank Enterprise Survey 2019 data on 737 firms from the Czech Republic and Slovenia and employed structural equation modeling. The results indicate that environmental orientation positively influences R&D and environmental outputs. Moreover, environmental regulations spur firms' environmental orientation as well as environmental outputs. On the other hand, the findings reveal that R&D is neither a key factor nor plays a key role as a mediator of environmental regulations and environmental orientation affecting environmental outputs based on the sample of selected countries pertaining to Central and Eastern Europe.

中文翻译：

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研发是可持续发展的桥梁？捷克共和国和斯洛文尼亚的案例

先前的研究表明，政府是影响企业实施环境创新和追求可持续发展的决策以及塑造企业环境导向的关键因素。然而，企业研发在这些过程中的作用仍不清楚。本文探讨了企业的环境监管、研发、环境导向和环境产出之间的关系，以更好地理解它们之间的关系和动态。我们使用了来自捷克共和国和斯洛文尼亚的 737 家公司的世界银行企业调查 2019 数据，并采用了结构方程模型。结果表明，环境导向对研发和环境产出有积极影响。此外，环境法规刺激企业 环境导向和环境输出。另一方面，根据中欧和东欧选定国家的样本，研究结果表明，研发既不是关键因素，也不是影响环境产出的环境法规和环境导向的关键因素。