Does Sustainable Innovation Boost Textile Competitiveness? Correlational Meta-analysis in the Industry

Sustainable innovation is consolidated as a strategic determinant of competitiveness in the textile industry, a resource-intensive sector highly exposed to environmental, regulatory, and market pressures that require the reconfiguration of its production and organizational models. However, the empirical evidence shows a marked heterogeneity, associated with differences in the operationalization of sustainable innovation and in the measurement of competitive performance. This study develops a correlational meta-analysis, under PRISMA 2020 guidelines, integrating 21 studies indexed in Scopus and Web of Science that report quantitative relationships between sustainable innovation and competitiveness. Using a random-effects model complemented by analysis of sensitivity, robustness, and publication bias, a positive and significant effect is estimated (estimate = 0.5038; 95% CI [0.3665, 0.6412]; p < 0.0001), which shows its impact on the generation of sustainable competitive advantages. However, the high heterogeneity (I 2 = 97.7%) and the absence of differences between subgroups (p = 0.7588) indicate that this relationship responds to multilevel configurations, conditioned by organizational capacities, technological intensity, and institutional environment, which prevents homogeneous effects in different industrial contexts.