Abstract
The relationship between the development of circular-oriented innovations and their impact on companies' economic performance is still an under researched management issue in the existing studies on circular economy. Through scrutinizing the 100 companies that invested the most in R&D from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2020, this study addresses this research gap. The level of companies' circular-oriented innovations has been measured with the number and percentage of circular patents while the economic performance is proxied with the operating revenues. In addition, since the fact that the impact of circular-oriented innovations on economic performance may be enhanced by companies' collaborations, the moderating role of copatenting, a widely adopted measure of the level of collaboration between companies, has been verified. After a general investigation involving more than 12 million patents, the panel data regression model proves that circular-oriented innovations are related to companies' economic performance, but a negative correlation persists along the different time lags, while the copatenting moderates this relationship.