The impact of innovation type on the performance and social responsibility of French manufacturing companies

Competition is essential for businesses to succeed in the global economic system. This necessitates firms to reevaluate their competitive position in terms of innovation relative to competitors, among other things. This explains why innovation has risen to the forefront of small business literature, reports, and government policy over the past twenty years. However, there hasn’t been much discussion of the potential effects of other innovation-related aspects on corporate performance. This research proposes a clear object for the literature development by exploring the personal impact of product and process innovation, and then their interaction with outside collaborations. This aims is to expand the literature to include the local contribution of a sample of French manufacturing companies of a company’s performance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities during the period 2010–2020. In reality, study findings show that while process and product innovations fail to return on total assets, they are nonetheless advantageous to firm success in terms of accounting performance. This means that while investing in creative businesses might increase consumer loyalty, it can also take time for them to become profitable. Additionally, we revealed evidence that innovation may make firms seem less transparent, particularly when there are outside stakeholders. This motivates firms to use CSR initiatives to communicate their sustainability and goodwill. It encourages companies to refer signals about their sustainability and goodwill through (CSR) activities. It encourages firms to use CSR initiatives to communicate their sustainability and goodwill. Instead of using a composite CSR score, as some previous studies have done, we are the first to break down the various ways that CSR activities might contribute to local well-being and to provide proof of their impact and innovation in each area. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.