Government environmental attention and corporate decision behaviour in shaping open eco-innovation ESG practices and perceived ESG performance

Understanding how public policy signals translate into measurable sustainability improvements remains a central challenge in environmental governance, particularly in emerging economies. This study examines how government environmental attention shapes firms’ engagement in open eco-innovation and how these innovation pathways contribute to sustainability-oriented practises and outcomes. Drawing on institutional theory, open innovation theory, and perspectives on sustainability transitions, we conceptualise inbound and outbound open eco-innovation as mechanisms through which policy attention is transformed into organisational responses relevant to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practises. Using cross-sectional survey data from 300 medium and large enterprises in Thailand and variance-based structural equation modelling, we analyse how government environmental attention and corporate decision-making behaviour relate to firms’ openness to external knowledge sourcing and outward collaboration. The results show that heightened government attention is associated with stronger inbound open eco-innovation, while its direct influence on outbound openness is limited. Outbound open eco-innovation, however, is more strongly associated with the adoption of ESG-related practises, which in turn are linked to perceived sustainability performance. Environmental information disclosure and green technology capability condition several of these relationships, highlighting the importance of transparency and absorptive capacity in policy-driven innovation ecosystems. The findings suggest that government attention alone is insufficient to drive sustainability transitions unless it is coupled with organisational capabilities and openness that enable knowledge exchange and diffusion. By foregrounding open eco-innovation as a governance-relevant mechanism, this study contributes to debates on how policy signals interact with firm-level innovation systems to support sustainability transitions in emerging economies.