**5. Conclusions**

The determinant relationships between innovation, CSR (social and environmental practices), and stakeholder orientation show that there is a real link among them, and as a result, it would be necessary for the company to adopt a holistic vision that takes into account different capitals (natural, human, social, and relational) to ensure the creation of value and the generation of assets [18]. In this sense, our study shows that CSR and stakeholder orientation promote intellectual capital, industrial property, in leading European companies in sustainability, and an integrated report that includes all the resources will allow for better management of them.

CSR constitutes a framework incorporating various policies, one of which is innovation. Some of the policies on innovation are related to those concerning CSR, which indicates that companies may seek to differentiate themselves from their competition by means of their CSR strategy. Innovation is a difficult factor to control but, as shown in the results, its links to CSR provide a suitable context for appropriate implementation. A finding of the research is that innovation policies are aimed at goals that are in accordance with CSR practices [87].

Moreover, taking CSR as a variable mediated by stakeholder orientation, we conclude that there is a joint effect on innovation. The integration of these two strategies generates a greater number of patents. The research shows that stakeholder orientation may require changes to production processes or products, and hence a re-orientation of innovation policy may be required [55]. An additional finding is that the resulting attention to the social and environmental demands of stakeholders could encourage more sustainable practices and processes, which could generate shared value [3, 48].

It would be interesting in subsequent research, to examine the extent to which CSR practices require innovations involving radical change or inventions, or whether the innovations made are mere developments of existing technology. In addition, it could be interesting to analyse concepts such as eco-innovation. Furthermore, as risk constitutes a significant factor, a further study should be made of the effect of a firm's ownership structure on the CSR strategies adopted and on its innovation policy. Future research could study the impact of different stakeholders on innovation policies (such as employees and consumers) and analyse the possible impact of corporate governance, which could improve the analysis.
