Science Research Management ›› 2021, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (12): 158-166.

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Can stakeholder′ environmental orientation promote green innovation?——A moderated mediation model

  

  1. School of Business Administration, Guizhou University of Finance and Economics, Guiyang 550025, Guizhou, China
  • Received:2019-10-12 Revised:2020-06-17 Online:2021-12-20 Published:2021-12-17

Abstract:     Due to the traditional pattern featured high-energy consumption and heavy contamination, resource-based enterprises are confronted with internal and external environmental pressures. In this context, green innovation has become a global issue and been regarded as the panacea to relieve the stress concerning stakeholders′ environmental orientation and to solve environmental pollution since it enables enterprises to save energy and reduce emissions. Although current literature discusses the impact of external stakeholders′ environmental orientation on green innovation, the stakeholder theory highlights that each stakeholder who is bond with the organization (e.g., shareholders, suppliers, and employees) should be integrated into a research frame in a holistic view. Furthermore, existing researches ignore the ambiguity of internal mechanism between stakeholders′ environmental orientation and corporate green innovation so that the process remains unclear in terms of value delivery and boundary situation. All such problems are urgent to be solved. Thus, our study aims to discuss the effectiveness of stakeholders′ environmental orientation on green innovation and its boundary conditions.
    A questionnaire survey that concentrates on resource-based enterprises in western China was conducted to test the proposed hypotheses. Our questionnaire adopted a five-point Likert scale from 1 ("strongly disagree") to 5 ("strongly agree") with options to measure all the variables. Based on the survey data of 423 resource-based enterprises, the impacts of internal and external stakeholders′ environmental orientation on green innovation were discussed by using the hierarchical regression method. The results show that internal and external stakeholders′ environmental orientation both have a positive impact on corporate green innovation, and organization environmental culture plays a partially mediated role in the relationship between them. Green organization identity positively moderates the relationship between organization environmental culture and green innovation and positively moderates the mediation effect of organization environmental culture. 
    This study has several theoretical implications. First of all, we took the internal and external SEOs into account simultaneously and examined their positive impacts on green innovation, shedding light on studies regarding green innovation under the stakeholder theory and expanding the theoretical system of CSR. Secondly, our research examined the moderating role of environmental culture, which enriches the application range and scenarios of the environmental culture and helps scholars as well as managers to comprehend the mechanism. Thirdly, we provide a new perspective to promote green innovation of resource-based enterprises by introducing green organization identity and identifying its boundary effect. 
    This study also provides resource-based enterprises the following management implications: Firstly, local governments can enhance the supervision on resource-based enterprises, improve relevant environmental assessment mechanism, and monitor the pollution emission of plants; Secondly, resource-based enterprises should dive into the transformation of green innovation rather than follow the old pattern of developing first and harnessing later with the cost of ecological degradation or environmental damage. Meanwhile, enterprises relying on natural resources should encourage stakeholders to express their appeals or preference by building an online platform or offline meeting to promote green innovation. Thirdly, strengthening cultural self-confidence to create a strong cultural environment is beneficial to strengthen green innovation. For instance, the reward for outstanding employees with environmentally friendly awareness and behavior will display the "demonstration effect" on green innovation in terms of the function ofthe corporate culture. Finally, making the most of the "leverage effect". Enterprises should instill the minds of personnel with organization environmental culture systematically during the period of stuff training and then strengthen these values through regular propaganda meetings. Besides, utilizing the digital communication platform, informal organizations, and social networks among employees is imperative for incorporations to enhance employees′ green organization identity.

Key words:  stakeholder′ environmental orientation, organization environmental culture, green organization identity, green innovation