Opportunistic behaviors are considered ethically and strategically troublesome since they disrupt otherwise mutually beneficial relationships. Previous literature has shown that firms attempt to protect their investments from opportunism by generating a large amount of patented marginal innovations in domains central to their industry. However, this approach may generate some ethical dilemmas by preventing firms and societies from more radical, collaborative, and much-needed environmental progress. We extend the environmental innovation literature using strategic and ethical lenses to analyze the potential of an (...) alternative, divergent way to provide financial opportunities for a focal firm without aiming to prevent innovative opportunities for competitors. Our longitudinal analysis of 6768 environmental patents from 59 large companies worldwide in the electrical components and equipment industry shows that high levels of innovation intensity, environmental scope, bargaining power, and environmental expertise increase the incidence of patented environmental innovations related to domains in which industry competitors are less focused (i.e., technological divergence). We also show a positive relationship between this divergence and market-based firm performance. Our results suggest that pursuing innovative divergence to avoid opportunism may make ethical and market sense and we also identify the organizational factors that can support these efforts. (shrink)

With the rise of responsible innovation initiatives in firms that commercialize innovation in recent years, experts have argued that in order for RI to succeed, practical issues must be considered. Accordingly, this paper explores RI from the perspective of Korean emerging technology development firms. Although social benefits are expected from RI, which aims to reduce the side effects of innovations for society, the implementation of RI requires changing firms’ existing rules and routines. Therefore, predicting benefits and costs from the firm’s (...) perspective can shed light on the likelihood that RI will succeed. In this study, through an expert survey, the relative weights of RI-related benefit criteria and cost criteria were analyzed. On this basis, trends in priorities for RI levels were evaluated from present and future perspectives. Unexpectedly, firms recognized that even if constraints such as RI impose greater costs, they will eventually bring greater benefits. This finding indicates that innovation induced by RI overcomes obstacles, offsets costs, and then finally increases firms’ competitiveness, and that firms are willing to do good for society through RI. In the long term, a firm’s ethical activities may eventually result in improved performance by its management. Therefore, it can be concluded that, even if RI is enforced in a compulsory manner, it is highly likely that it can be well established and promoted even in firms that consider profit first. (shrink)

Firms worldwide are increasingly required to disclose their carbon emissions due to the environmental damage associated with climate change. Because there has been no previous literature focusing on the determinants of corporate carbon disclosure integrating environmental legitimacy and green innovation, the present study attempted to develop an original framework to fill the research gap. This study explored the influence of environmental legitimacy on corporate carbon disclosure, and investigated the role of green innovation as a mediator. With the samples of Carbon (...) Disclosure Project in China from 2008 to 2012, the results demonstrate that environmental legitimacy significantly negatively influences the likelihood of corporate carbon disclosure, and that green process innovation mediates the relationship, while green product innovation has no significant mediating effect. It means that environmental legitimacy not only directly affects the likelihood of corporate carbon disclosure, but also indirectly affects it via green process innovation. Hence, companies must increase both informal and formal mechanisms, i.e., external environmental legitimacy and internal green process innovation, to engage in carbon information disclosure and ensure sustainability. (shrink)

As stated by previous researchers, in an increasingly competitive environment, organizations need to develop successful innovations to compete and survive in the long term. Furthermore, sustainability and social issues are gaining increasing importance, to the extent that they are now a matter of high concern for firms and for society. Therefore, organizations cannot improve their results at any price and must be responsible for the consequences of their activities, including innovation. In these conditions, a growing demand for new leadership styles (...) and behaviors arises to face this complex context. Stewardship is a leadership behavior that shows great concern for the impact of the organization’s activity on society. A quantitative study has been conducted with the purpose of providing empirical evidence of the relationship between leaders’ stewardship behavior and innovation success, using radical innovation as an explanatory variable. To confirm the hypotheses, structural equations were used on a dataset from a sample of 300 questionnaires from Spanish companies. The study empirically validates the proposed conceptual model. Results show how radical innovation fully mediates the relationship between leaders’ stewardship behavior and innovation success. (shrink)

The relationship between corporate social responsibility and corporate financial performance has long been a central and contentious debate in the literature. However, prior empirical studies provide indefinite conclusions. The purpose of this study is to review systematically and quantify the CSR–CFP link in a meta-analytic framework. Based on 119 effect sizes from 42 studies, this study estimates that the overall effect size of the CSR–CFP relationship is positive and significant, thus endorsing the argument that CSR does enhance financial performance. Furthermore, (...) this work sheds light on the causal relationship between CSR and CFP. Subsequent financial performance is associated with prior social responsibility, while the reverse direction is not supported. This finding supports the instrumental stakeholder theory. As predicted, the meta-analysis results indicate that the measurement strategies of the two key constructs of CSR and CFP explain some variations of the CSR–CFP relationship. Last, this study examines the moderating effect of the environmental context on the CSR–CFP link. This work proposes that CSR in the developed world, with a relatively mature institutional system and efficient market mechanism, will be more visible than CSR in the developing world. The results show that the CSR–CFP relationship is stronger for firms from advanced economies than for firms from developing economies. (shrink)

The paper explores the influence of greenwash on green trust and discusses the mediation roles of green consumer confusion and green perceived risk. The research object of this study focuses on Taiwanese consumers who have the purchase experience of information and electronics products in Taiwan. This research employs an empirical study by means of the structural equation modeling. The results show that greenwash is negatively related to green trust. Therefore, this study suggests that companies must reduce their greenwash behaviors to (...) enhance their consumers’ green trust. In addition, this study finds out that green consumer confusion and green perceived risk mediate the negative relationship between greenwash and green trust. The results also demonstrate that greenwash is positively associated with green consumer confusion and green perceived risk which would negatively affect green trust. It means that greenwash does not only negatively affect green trust directly but also negatively influence it via green consumer confusion and green perceived risk indirectly. Hence, if companies would like to reduce the negative relationship between greenwash and green trust, they need to decrease their consumers’ green consumer confusion and green perceived risk. (shrink)

Introduction: How enterprises should practice digitalization transformation to effectively improve green innovation performance is related to the sustainable development of enterprises and the economy, which is an important issue that needs to be clarified. -/- Methods: This research uses the perspective of production and operation to deconstruct the digitalization of industrial listed enterprises from 2016 to 2020 into six features. A variety of machine learning methods are used, including DBSCAN, CART and other algorithms, to specifically explore the complex impact of (...) enterprise digitalization feature configuration on green innovation performance. -/- Conclusions: (1) The more advanced digitalization transformation the enterprises have, the more possibly the high green innovation performance can be achieved. (2) Digitalization innovation is the digitalization element with the strongest influence ability on green innovation performance. (3) As the advancement of digitalization transformation, enterprises should also focus on digitalization innovation input and digitalization operation output, otherwise they should pay attention to digitalization management and digitalization operation output. -/- Discussion: The conclusions of this research will help enterprises understand their digitalization competitiveness and how to practice digitalization transformation to enhance green innovation performance, and also help the government to formulate policies to promote the development of green innovation in the digital economy era. (shrink)

This study explores how the academic experience of executives affects green innovation. Using data on executive academic experience from a sample of Chinese listed companies, we explore the relationship between executive academic experience and green innovation using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. We find that executive academic experience has a positive impact on green innovation. We also investigate the moderating effect of managerial discretionary factors organizational slack, nature of property rights, and degree of market competition. The results show (...) that organizational slack positively moderates the relationship between senior managers’ academic experience and green innovation, and this positive relationship is more significant in state-owned enterprises. The degree of market competition had a negative moderating effect on the positive relationship between academic experience of senior managers and green innovation. Improved general competence and concern for the environment are two possible mechanisms by which senior managers’ academic experience affects green innovation. Our findings suggest that academic experience of senior managers is an important factor for green innovation in emerging market firms. (shrink)

This study aims to investigate the impact of stakeholders’ views on the practices of green innovation (GI), consequent effect on environmental and organizational performance (OP), and moderating influence of innovation orientation. A quantitative method was employed for the sample size of 515 responses. To accumulate the data from the respondents, convenient random sampling was used. Data were collected from manufacturing and services firms through a field survey by using a closed-ended questionnaire based in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The analysis (...) was done using the structural equation model of the partial least square analysis method. Our findings proved a positive and significant link between stakeholders’ views on GI practices. A significant association has been found between GI practices and environmental and OP. The moderating effect was found to be negative but statistically significant. This research offers numerous contributions and provides decision-making insinuations. (shrink)

With the 21st century, we are witnessing the mass spread of the communication technologies and social media revolution. Interactive networks built on a global scale have led to the formation of a virtual world of reality that is connecting the whole world. With the global spread of communication networks, the question of whether social media points to a new public sphere has been raised. Social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are nowadays seen as a place where political (...) campaigns are carried out, causing the destruction of authoritarian regimes, organizing global protests and innovation culture, and discussing political, social and cultural changes. What gives social media a similar quality to the agora of Ancient Greek city-states is the characteristic of been a place where citizens come together and talk about issues that are considered to be public, eventhough in a virtual reality. This work, following the Arendtian sense, discusses whether social media really is a place where public issues are discussed, common ideas are produced and transparency prevails. In her work "The Human Condition", Arendt makes a fundamental distinction between private and public sphere based on human activities. By conceiving the activities that she describes as labour and work in relation to the private sphere, Arendt tackles the activity of action through linking it to public sphere. Arendt defines the public sphere as a sphere of freedom and a political sphere. The public sphere consists of equal people without hierarchy, who come together with their completely free will. According to Arendt, the condition for the public sphere to be possible is transparency and commonality. Firstly; it has a wide transparency in the sense that something have to be seen and heard by others, and the second is that it points to a common world that belongs to everyone, except for the part that is privately owned. Considering the public sphere in relation to the transparency not a direct transfer of things that happen in the private or intimate sphere. It is precisely related to the fact that something pertaining to the private exhibits a presence within the world of public and the fact that the private acquires a public chatacter. This does not mean that the public sphere is a sphere in which the private and intimate are directly transferred. According to Arendt, leading a private life as a whole will lead to the lack of what is necessary to be a true person. It also leads to the lack of a common world that unites and separates them. Arendt thinks that with the modern period, what belongs to the purely private and intimate sphere expands and causes the collapse of the public. The collapse of the public sphere in the modern period; It has caused both the loss of difference and interaction and the emergence of individuals who are increasingly alike, unable to think and act. In this kind of society, action has left its place to behavior, difference to standartization and thought to obedience. Arendt sees the public sphere as a sphere where public affairs are discussed, while the private sphere is a sphere where intimate and private activities take place. Arendt argues that with modern society the distinction between public and private has became indistinct , and as a third sphere, the social sphere has swallowed up both the public and the private. The social sphere has removed the distinction between the public transparency and commonality of the public and the privacy of the private sphere and activities. This study considers social media as a sphere where public issues are discussed. It also dıscusses the private sphere events and the most intimate issues. It claims that social media is not a new public sphere as it is cosidered, but it is a social sphere in which the distinction between private and public in the Arendtian sense is become indistinct. In this context, the study seeks to answer the following questions: How does the distinction between public and private spheres, which is central in Arendt's thought, look like in today’s world? Is it possible to talk about a public sphere in the modern age? Can social media be considered as a public sphere? Or is social media a sphere of freedom and a political sphere? Does social media allow discussions on public issues? Is social media a non-hierarchical nature open to the free participation of everyone, difference and plurality? (shrink)

Despite the rising interest in environmental strategies, few studies have examined how managerial cognition of such strategies influences actual innovation capability development. Taking a managerial cognition perspective, this study investigates how managers’ perceptions of institutional pressures relate to their focus on proactive environmental strategy, which in turn affects firms’ realized innovation capability. The findings from a primary survey and three secondary datasets of publicly listed companies in China reveal that managers’ perceived business and social pressures are positively associated with their (...) focus on proactive environmental strategy, which consequently fosters innovation capability development. Moreover, state ownership and government administrative control weaken the impact of managerial focus on proactive environmental strategy on innovation capability. These findings have important implications for how managerial cognition supports environmental strategy and organizational capability building under the influence of institutional pressures and government intervention. (shrink)

A growing number of companies are implementing proactive environmental strategies with the objective of gaining competitive advantage through an enhanced reputation, the reduction in production costs, and a first-mover advantage in the green product market. Yet according to the natural-resource-based view, the development and maintenance of unique and valuable environmental capabilities are the central elements allowing companies to gain financial benefit from their proactive environmental strategy. In this context, management control systems can contribute to the development of environmental capabilities by (...) focusing attention on strategic priorities and stimulating dialogue. Through a single case study, and building on Simons’ four levers of control, we propose a conceptual framework of management control levers that show how companies can enhance stakeholder integration capability through the joint use of belief, boundary, and diagnostic control systems; shared vision capability through the joint use of the belief and boundary systems; organizational learning capability through the use of interactive control systems and to a lesser extent diagnostic control systems; and continuous innovation capability through the use of interactive control systems, belief systems and to a lesser extent diagnostic control systems. (shrink)

External regulatory and normative pressures from both the Chinese central environmental protection inspection (CEPI) program and public participation can act together to influence corporate environmental governance behavior. This research uses the multiperiod Difference-In-Differences method to test the compound impact of CEPI and public participation on corporate environmental governance strategies and investigate the underlying influence mechanisms. The results show that CEPI and public participation have a positive compound effect on the corporate “source-control” strategy. A reasonable reduction in pollution charges and increased (...) environmental subsidies are essential to stimulate the green innovation potential of heavily polluting firms. Our research helps clarify the game relationship between the central and the local governments and analyzes how the relationship between the government, the public, and corporates affects environmental governance, thereby advancing principal-agent theory and expanding the current research on institutional pressures and corporate environmental governance. (shrink)

This study is based on the natural resource based view, which examines the impact of holistic marketing orientation on business performance by defining the role of enablers and mediators. The drivers, including corporate social responsibility and environmental culture influence, are tested by analyzing the role of sustainable competitive advantage as a mediator. The analysis is based on 298 samples collected from top and middle-level managers working in the pharmaceutical industry. Structural equation modeling was undertaken using Smart PLS 3.2.8. The research (...) outcomes reveal that corporate social responsibility and environmental culture have a substantial impact on green marketing orientation. The results show that GMO has a significant direct and indirect impact on business performance while a full mediation of sustainable competitive advantage exists between the green marketing orientation and business performance. The outcomes will facilitate managers in green marketing strategy and decision making in the long-term, with 3-fold benefits in addition to strengthening their competitiveness. (shrink)

We examine the role of socio-demographic factors on consumers’ pro-environmental behavior (PEB)–a subset of ethical behavior and analyze its implications in an emerging market, with a sample study from India. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed as research method. Results show that males display higher PEB than their female counterparts. Married consumers score more on PEB than single. Mid-age consumers (36–50) also score high on PEB than young and old-age consumers. Furthermore, highly educated consumers are more pro-environmentalist than graduates (...) and post-graduates. The novelty of this study is that centers on the use of demographic variables interactively in order to form microsegments. For instance, married men score more on PEB scale than unmarried men and women and prefer green channels even more (i.e., public transportation). On the contrary, unmarried women display no hesitation in paying more for energy-efficient goods compared to married men and unmarried men. Marketers may aim in setting such PEBs as the moral standards among consumers being an easily identifiable segment as their prime target. (shrink)

Global environmental problems, such as global warming, pollution, or deforestation, are critical issues that require a rapid and common response. In this context, companies play a decisive role in achieving environmental objectives through the ecological knowledge they can store and manage. In this context, the present research focuses its interest on analyzing how the set of green intangibles possessed by organizations, i.e., Green Intellectual Capital, affects their Green Performance. Specifically, the study shows how GP is influenced by GIC through the (...) mediating role of the Green Innovation variable. Therefore, the research questions to be answered by this study are as follows: Does GIC influence environmental performance? Does GI mediate the GIC-GP relationship? What actions can companies take to improve their GP? There are several reasons that have led us to carry out this research. First, there is little empirical evidence of the relationships proposed in this study. Second, to the best of our knowledge, there is no previous research that has contextualized the relationships raised in the wine industry, thus representing an advance in the comprehension of the constructs studied. Third, GIC represents an incipient field of study that needs to be developed and established within the literature linked to Intellectual Capital. In order to achieve the proposed objectives, data from a survey of 202 wineries in Spain were used and a quantitative approach was followed using Structural Equation Modeling. The results of the research indicate that there is a positive and significant relationship between GIC and GP. In addition, GI partially mediates the relationship between these two variables, playing a key role in the environmental management of wineries. The theoretical and practical contributions of the study improve the understanding of the relationships raised, being a pioneering study due to its contextualization in the wine industry, as well as providing a series of guidelines for both environmental managers and winemakers to improve their GP. (shrink)

Green innovation investments have rapidly grown since 2000. Green innovation indexes play important roles and are typically constructed by screening and indexing. However, Nobel Laureate Markowitz emphasizes portfolio selection instead of security selection and accentuates that “A good portfolio is more than a long list of good stocks.” Moreover, the screening-indexing strategies ignore that investors can take green innovation as an additional objective and thus gain additional utility. We consequently construct 3-objective portfolio selection for green innovation in addition to variance (...) and expected return. An efficient frontier of portfolio selection then extends to an efficient surface which is a panorama of the optimal variance, expected return, and expected green innovation. Investors thus fully envisage the trade-offs and enjoy the freedom of choosing preferred portfolios on the surface. In contrast, the screening-indexing strategies inflexibly leave investors with only one point. As the originality, we prove in a theorem that there typically exists a curve on the efficient surface so all portfolios on the curve dominate the green innovation index. We test the dominance by component stocks of China Securities Index 300 and obtain affirmative results out of sample. The results still hold in robustness tests. At last, we classify green innovation into categories, further model the categories by general k -objective portfolio selection, and still illustrate the dominance. Consequently, investors can consider and control each category. (shrink)

Competitive advantage and core competency are the unique capabilities and assets of an organization to provide valuable products or services to customers, thus giving the organization a better competitive position in the market than its competitors. In addition, how to create a competitive advantage is also one of the main objectives of business strategy. Therefore, this study focuses on understanding the decisive factors in regional revitalization and the relationship between business strategy, strategic alliance, and alliance performance through small and medium (...) enterprises in Taiwan. This study selected a sample of 220 SMEs in Taiwan that had participated in the SME regional revitalization counseling program. The results showed that competitive advantage, core competency and strategic alliance partner selection had significant effects on alliance performance. In addition, core competency had an indirect effect on alliance performance through strategic alliance partner selection. However, competitive advantage did not have a significant effect on strategic alliance partner selection. Finally, this study proposes management implications and practical suggestions for SMEs’ competitive advantage, core competency, and alliance performance. (shrink)

Does environmental management help foreign firms outperform local firms in emerging economies? While existing research suggests that environmental management may or may not benefit firm performance, the question is particularly under-investigated in the emerging economy context. Using the data on foreign investment into China, this study explores whether foreign firms that are under greater environmental pressure, at home or at the host, outperform comparable local firms in an emerging host country. In making this comparison, we use propensity-score matching and a (...) difference-in-differences approach to handle the problem of endogeneity inherent in comparing the performances of foreign versus local firms. We find empirical support that foreign firms perform better than local firms when they are under high environmental pressure in the emerging host country, and this result is driven by the foreign firms originating from countries with high environmental pressure. (shrink)

Synthesizing insights from a dynamic capability perspective and social network theory, this study identifies the factors influencing green innovation and examines the relationships between influencing factors, green innovation, and performance. This study uses structural equation modeling to test the research hypotheses. The results indicate that dynamic capability, coordination capability, and social reciprocity are significant drivers of green innovation, including green product innovation and green process innovation. Green product and process innovation have positive effects on environmental performance and organizational performance. These (...) findings are relevant to firms in quest of green management and innovation. (shrink)

In an increasingly urbanized world, construction industry is called upon to serve the needs of human society, such as environmental protection and safety in terms of infrastructure. In this context, a sustainable and ethical development means a close connection between buildings and environment. This connection can be achieved through, for example, the concept of ecological concrete or green concrete, as it is often called. The conventional process of obtaining cement and mineral aggregates from the concrete composition generates pollution, especially through (...) greenhouse gas emissions. Also, one should not ignore the fact that extraction of the raw materials affects the habitats of the sites and of the neighboring areas. When construction materials are questioned, the ethical issues lay not in the means of expression, but mainly in the means of production. More to the point, the present contribution aimed to find solutions for enhancing the adhesion of vegetal aggregates with the cement matrix, in order to obtain a material with optimal mechanical properties, which is valued as an ethical approach of building industry. Results showed that plant aggregates can be used to obtain a building material which can be improved by using partial substitution of cement by silica fume, fly ash, or by using additives and that green concrete as an environmentally friendly material offers the alternative for lower energy use and fewer CO2 emissions. Marketers must understand not only the advantages of these green materials, but also that they have an ethical commitment to provide consumers with environmentally friendly materials. (shrink)

Corporate environmental ethics has moved from a niche issue within business strategy to a potential source of competitive advantage. Firms, however, are comprised of individuals who vary in their personal beliefs regarding environmental responsibility. Environmental stewards are those employees whose attitudes and actions reflect environmental concern. Top management can convey similar environmental values through the creation of eco-capabilities. Applying logic from the natural resource-based view of the firm, we build a model to test how the alignment of environmental values impacts (...) multiple outcomes. We conduct a time-lagged examination using multi-level data from frontline employees, their managers, and their customers. We find that firms can ‘activate’ their corporate environmental ethics through eco-capabilities. Specifically, environmental stewards find more meaning in their work when managers perceive high levels of eco-capabilities within the firm. This meaningful work increases employee brand advocacy and customer satisfaction. Together, we demonstrate how corporate environmental ethics translates to the frontline and the customers they serve. (shrink)

Because no previous literature discusses the determinants of green product development performance, this study develops an original framework to fill the research gap. This study explores the influences of green dynamic capabilities and green transformational leadership on green product development performance and investigates the mediation role of green creativity. The results demonstrate that green dynamic capabilities and green transformational leadership positively influence green creativity and green product development performance. Besides, this study indicates that the positive relationships between green product development (...) performance and their two antecedents—green dynamic capabilities and green transformational leadership—are partially mediated by green creativity. It means that green dynamic capabilities and green transformational leadership can not only directly affect green product development performance positively but also indirectly affect it positively via green creativity. Hence, companies have to increase their green dynamic capabilities, green transformational leadership, and green creativity to enhance their green product development performance. (shrink)

Enterprises are the market players for carbon reductions and carbon trading, and they are also the significant driving force in a low-carbon economy and society. Using the data of A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2016, this study uses a difference-in-differences model to examine the effects of the low-carbon city construction on corporate carbon reduction performance. Consistent with our hypotheses, we find that the low-carbon city construction promotes corporate carbon reduction performance. Further analysis indicates that the policy effect is stronger (...) for state-owned enterprises than non-state-owned enterprises. Moreover, environmental quality can affect the promotion of local government officials, which is more prominent in pilot low-carbon cities, and political promotion incentives significantly improve corporate carbon reduction performance. Furthermore, the highest emission reduction effects come in the fourth year after adopting a carbon reduction policy and are concentrated among the firms in the eastern region. Overall, our findings offer a new point view for a deeper understanding of the improvement of corporate carbon reduction performance, and provide microscopic evidence for the objective evaluation of the environmental effects of China's low-carbon city pilot policies. (shrink)