Utilize structural equation modeling (SEM) to explore the influence of corporate environmental ethics: the mediation effect of green human capital

This study utilizes structural equation modeling (SEM) to explore the positive effects of corporate environmental ethics on green relationship learning and green innovation performance in the Taiwanese manufacturing industry. In addition, this study explores the concept of green human capital and discusses its mediation effect on the positive relationships between corporate environmental ethics and the two consequents: green relationship learning and green innovation performance. The empirical results show that corporate environmental ethics positively affects green relationship learning and green innovation performance. Furthermore, this study verifies green human capital mediates the positive relationships between corporate environmental ethics and the two consequents: green relationship learning and green innovation performance. Finally, this study divides the Taiwanese manufacturing companies into several different groups, and provides some suggestions to them.     

How do green knowledge management and green technology innovation impact corporate environmental performance? Understanding the role of green knowledge acquisition

Increasing regulatory obligations to adapt and execute environmentally friendly operations make it critical for businesses to pursue strategies that can strengthen their competitive edge in the market. Academics and practitioners alike have recently gravitated toward exploring how knowledge acquisition activities might improve business outcomes. To address this growing research interest, this study investigates the critical roles of green knowledge acquisition in enhancing green knowledge management and green technology innovation activities in improving corporate environmental performance, positioning resource commitment as a moderator. The research model has been assessed using structural equation modeling with survey data from 283 Indian manufacturers, demonstrating that green knowledge acquisition significantly impacts green knowledge management and green technology innovation. The statistical findings also show that green technology innovation acts catalyzes the translation of green knowledge management into improved corporate environmental performance. The results demonstrate that resource commitment moderates green knowledge acquisition's interaction with green knowledge management and green technology innovation, providing practical insights enabling managers to focus on planning, allocating, and budgeting resources for effective green practices that can contribute to improving corporate environmental performance.     

Improving Firm Environmental Performance and Reputation: The Role of Employee Green Teams

This paper examines the link between a firm's organization environmental management capability, represented by the development of green teams made up of employees, and its performance. In particular, two categories of firm performance will be analysed: environmental performance and environmental reputation. This link has been investigated in a sample made of the largest publicly traded US companies. Data about green teams have been collected through the content analysis of firm environmental/sustainability/corporate social responsibility reports and/or their websites, whereas data about environmental performance and reputation are those reported in the US 500 Newsweek's 2010 Green Ranking. Regression analysis results show that the creation of employee green teams positively affects both environmental performance and environmental reputation. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Environmental Governance of Enterprises and their Economic Upshot through Corporate Reputation and Customer Satisfaction

Drawing on resource‐advantage and signalling theories, we investigate two mechanisms, namely corporate reputation and customer satisfaction, by which the environmental governance of enterprises can benefit their economic performance. Based on secondary data from the 500 largest US enterprises compiled from multiple sources, our findings contribute to the literature by establishing the link between corporate reputation and green reputation. We also establish the economic performance paths of environmental governance via corporate reputation and customer satisfaction. This study expounds on why ‘green’ matters and identifies the performance roles of two corporate strategic resources extractable from the environmental governance of enterprises. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Green marketing as an environmental practice: The impact on green satisfaction and green loyalty in a business-to-business context

Many companies have developed a green marketing strategy, aimed at promoting and selling green environmental products. While the majority of articles on this topic report on studies in a business-to-consumer setting, this research focusses on the impact of green marketing strategies on the satisfaction and loyalty of professional buyers in a business-to-business setting. Hypotheses were tested with survey data from 148 Dutch professional purchasers in the cleaning industry. The results emphasize the impact and importance of product quality, product price and corporate image. The most notable and strong impact on satisfaction and loyalty was found for the salesperson expertise.     

基于企业营销生态化伦理的竞争优势构建

市场经济也是一种道德伦理经济。在生态文明时代,一个企业开展营销时,如果能主动加强生态伦理建设,实现生态资源与环境约束的内涵式突破,在公众面前树立良好的生态伦理形象,那么他将极大地增强自身在市场中的竞争力。为此,根据生态的脆弱性、生态政策约束性趋紧、消费者生态消费意识渐浓、生态产品与生态技术价值凸显的时代趋势,本文结合前人的论述,利用层次分析法,构建了一个基于企业营销生态化伦理,涵盖5个一级指标、21个二级指标、34个三级指标、5个四级指标的竞争优势指标体系,为企业加强生态伦理建设、提升竞争优势提供了一个清晰的努力方向。     

The role of returnee executives in improving green innovation performance of Chinese manufacturing enterprises: Implications for sustainable development strategy

Environmental problems in China have attracted global attention. Grafting returnee executives' green resources to Chinese manufacturing enterprises is an effective way to solve China's sustainable development problems. This paper focuses on the impact of returnee executives and the heterogeneity of returnee and local executives on green innovation performance and the moderating effects of environmental regulation and managerial ties. The paper builds on data from 276 Chinese manufacturing enterprises. The results show that returnee executives tend to achieve sustainable development through green innovation. However, not all kinds of heterogeneity between returnee and local executives can promote green innovation performance. In addition, environmental regulation and managerial ties, as two important external moderation variables, have different impacts and different extents of impact on the relationship between returnee executives and four aspects (R&D, manufacturing, marketing, and management) of green innovation performance, that is, environmental regulation positively moderates the relationship between returnee executives and green manufacturing and management innovation performance but negatively moderates the relationship between returnee executives and green R&D and marketing innovation performance. These findings have clear management implications for Chinese manufacturing enterprises.     

How do corporate environmental policy and corporate reputation affect risk‐adjusted financial performance?

The current study aims to answer dual, related questions: Does corporate environmental policy affect corporate reputation, and does this link also influence risk‐adjusted profitability and company's risk? With a comprehensive framework involving analyses of each question, among a sample of firms traced by the Reputation Institute, this study reveals several notable results, after correcting for endogeneity biases. First, environmental engagement and green product innovation are both antecedents of corporate reputation. Second, corporate reputation has a positive impact on risk‐adjusted profitability and Z score indicator of financial distress risk. Thus, corporate environmental responsibility and green practices represent cospecialized assets that enhances an intangible asset, namely, corporate reputation. The latter influence constitutes a missing link between sustainable development and the firm's financial performance. Overall, environmental engagement and corporate reputation act as insurance‐like protections of firm competitiveness.     

Does financing strategy accelerate corporate energy transition? Evidence from green bonds

With energy transition becoming an urgent priority for companies worldwide, practitioners and policymakers are urging them to finance climate-friendly projects. This paper investigates how the issuance of green bonds affects firms' carbon emissions and environmental performance. Our results show that green bond issuance significantly improves firms' overall environmental performance and their capacities to create new environmental technologies and processes. However, green bond issuance has a less clear effect on carbon emissions intensity and requires additional time (one or more years) before being able to improve the emissions intensity. Taken together, our study's findings clearly highlight the importance of green bonds in financing energy transition in the corporate sector and provide evidence to encourage policymakers to strengthen the legal framework relating to their issuance.     

High‐performance organizing,environmental management,and organizational performance: An evolutionary economics perspective

This study applies evolutionary economics reasoning to the green HRM context and examines whether and how environmental management routinization relates to organizational performance. In doing so, we introduce the concept of ecological routines, defined as deeply embedded, firm‐specific rules and procedures associated with organizing and practicing corporate environmental management that do not change very much from one iteration, period, or functional unit to another. We examine the extent to which ecological routines that encompass organizing (high‐performance organizing [HPO]) and practice routines of environmental sustainability relate to green decisions, green behaviors, and organizational performance. In a sample of 229 managers from 33 organizations in the environment‐sensitive industries of the United States, we find support for multilevel mediation of green decisions and green behaviors as well as interaction of HPO and environmental management practice routines. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

The product‐market performance benefits of environmental policy: Why customer awareness and firm innovativeness matter

Researchers have widely studied the nexus between corporate environmental (“green”) policy and its green performance and firm financial performance, but with mixed findings. A potential explanation for these mixed findings is the focus of extant studies on the direct and immediate impact of environmental performance on financial performance to the exclusion of firm‐specific boundary conditions. Furthermore, all prior research study the effect of environmental performance on either stock market‐based performance measures (i.e., stock return) or accounting‐based performance measures (i.e., return on assets). A missing third dimension of firm performance, product–market‐based performance (i.e., market share), has so far remained unexplored despite representing a crucial objective when innovating. Using Newsweek's annual green ranking as a novel measure of environmental performance for a panel of U.S. firms from 2010 to 2015, this paper attempts to fill these voids in the literature. The results show a positive relationship between firms' environmental performance and market share as a measure of product–market‐based performance. The findings further demonstrate that this relationship is positively moderated by the level of customer awareness and innovativeness of the firm: The higher the level of awareness of a firm's environmental credentials and innovativeness, the stronger the effects of environmental performance on market share. Our results are robust against endogeneity concerns and alternative measures of firm financial and environmental performance.     

Corporate Governance and the Environment: What Type of Governance Creates Greener Companies?

We build on a stakeholder–agency theoretical perspective to explore the impact of particular corporate governance mechanisms on firm environmental performance. Our empirical evidence shows that several important corporate governance mechanisms such as the board of directors, managerial incentives, the market for corporate control, and the legal and regulatory system determine firms' environmental performance levels. These results suggest that these different governance mechanisms resolve, to some extent, the existing divergence of interests between stakeholders and managers with respect to environmental activities.     

The influence of green marketing strategies on business performance and corporate image in the retail sector

Green marketing strategies are employed by many enterprises to enhance their corporate image and business performance. Green marketing is perceived as the commitment of a business or an organisation towards the development of safe, eco‐friendly goods and services by employing recyclable and easily decomposed packaging, better pollution prevention methods, and a more efficient use of energy. Against this background, the study followed a case study approach using South Africa's retail giants, Woolworths and Pick n Pay. Stratified purposive sampling was used to carry out in‐depth interviews and administer questionnaires with senior management of the selected retailers. In addition, document and website analyses were used for triangulation purposes. Path analysis and content analysis were used to establish the correlation. The study established that green marketing strategy has a positive effect on corporate image and on business performance. The paper recommends that if enterprises are to sustain competitive advantage, particularly in the retail sector, it is in their best interest to adopt green marketing strategies.     

旅游业绿色供应链运作模型研究

旅游业绿色供应链运作模型以生产系统、消费系统、社会系统和环境系统为主体,包括旅游产品的绿色设计、绿色采购、绿色生产、绿色营销与消费及旅游废弃物的处理,强调知识流和信息流的重要性以及社会伦理与法规对旅游企业和旅游者的约束作用。强化节点企业内部管理、发挥旅行社的主导作用、实施供应链业务流程再造、加强法制建设及政策引导是旅游业绿色供应链运作模型的实施保障。     

Payments for ecosystem services and corporate social responsibility: Perspectives on sustainable production,stakeholder relations,and philanthropy in Thailand

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) are environmental management tools that enable corporations to simultaneously enhance their environmental performance and fund sustainable development in rural areas. PES is primarily promoted as part of a sustainable production strategy for conserving natural resources, offsetting carbon emissions, and green supply chain management. Nevertheless, PES uptake by the private sector remains low, and few studies have analysed whether corporate‐financed PES schemes conform to this rationale. This study evaluates three of the first PES schemes in Thailand, financed by large corporations in the water utilities, aquaculture, and beverage sectors. Interviews with 39 business managers and project stakeholders suggest that PES may be viewed as a tool for philanthropy, public relations, and gaining license to operate—akin to many corporate social responsibility initiatives. Explanations and ramifications are discussed in the context of ecological uncertainty, risk management, financial performance, organisational learning, and the corporate‐engagement strategies of non‐governmental organisations.     

What do we know about business strategy and environmental research? Insights from Business Strategy and the Environment

Business Strategy and the Environment (BSE) is a premier journal dedicated to interdisciplinary research that advances business practice leading to improvements in environmental performance. Using big data analytics, this review examines the intellectual structure and the drivers of research impact of BSE in the scholarly domain. The bibliometric results suggest three major findings. First, the top three countries contributing to BSE are the United Kingdom, the United States, and China. Second, BSE's research manifests through five thematic clusters, namely, business strategy and sustainability; corporate governance and sustainability reporting; green marketing and pro-environmental behavior; innovation and environmental policy; and environmental management systems. Finally, BSE's research impact in terms of citations is significantly influenced by author affiliation (United States); article age (older), appearance (lead article and special issue), length (longer), and method (mix methods); title length (shorter title); and number of keywords (more keywords) and references (more references). Implications for BSE's readers and future contributors are discussed.     

Policies for Enhancing Corporate Environmental Management: a Framework and an Applied Example

This paper develops a four‐phase schematic representation dubbed the CEM lifecycle for conceptualizing how corporate environmental management (CEM) programs typically evolve in a given organization and then explicates the forces that influence corporate commitment as a CEM program progresses from inception to later phases of the CEM lifecycle. Examples are then presented on how the Singaporean government encourages enhancement of CEM programs by designing support programs that target the underlying corporate needs inherent to the first three CEM lifecycle phases. The examples provided in this paper of Singaporean CEM support programs illustrate how policy can be strategically designed to improve corporate uptake of CEM programs by enhancing CEM knowledge in the initial phase of the CEM lifecycle, providing technical support in the second lifecycle phase and providing opportunities for public recognition in the third lifecycle phase. The article concludes that replicating the strategic approach to policymaking exemplified in the Singaporean case study can significantly improve the competitiveness of domestic firms through encouraging more efficient use of resources; however, in order to design truly sustainable economies (provide for the needs of future generations), governments must be prepared to more coercively regulate the exploitation of natural endowments. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Do financial penalties for environmental violations facilitate improvements in corporate environmental performance? An empirical investigation

Environmental regulations play an essential role in managing firm behavior and providing a reference point for the minimum standards of corporate environmental performance, yet certain firms fail to ensure their environmental performance meets these standards. This research focuses on public firms that the US government has penalized for violating environmental regulations and investigates whether these firms subsequently improved their environmental performance. Surprisingly, neither the receipt of a penalty for an environmental violation nor the imposition of a greater penalty was associated with improvements in environmental performance. Instead, a penalty for environmental violation predicted further, albeit mild, deterioration in environmental performance. While the existing literature has established that financial penalties deter most firms from committing environmental violations, this research contributes to this literature by revealing that these penalties fail to motivate firms that have violated environmental regulations to improve their environmental performance.     

Corporate environmental strategies as tools to influence regulation

Corporate environmental initiatives have been attributed to a variety of different motives, including cost‐cutting, marketing to ‘green’ consumers willing to pay extra for environmentally friendly products, and shaping future government regulation (including the possible preemption of regulation). Understanding what really motivates corporate environmentalism is important for policymakers, since the effectiveness of government environmental policies depends in large part on how corporations will respond to them. We focus on the welfare implications of two alternative strategies firms may use to shape government regulations: (i) attempting to preempt future legislation altogether or (ii) failing this, to soften the impact of new laws by inducing regulators to set relatively weak standards. We show that while the first sounds threatening to social welfare, it produces political cost savings that outweigh any weakening of environmental performance. The second motivation, however, raises corporate profits, but not by enough to outweigh the resulting loss of environmental quality. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Corporate environmentalism: tracing the links between policies and performance using corporate reports and public registers

Within this paper, we consider whether it is possible to trace the links between the procedural and the substantive dimensions of corporate environmentalism using information that is in the public domain – most notably in corporate reports and in pollutant releases and transfer registers (PRTRs) such as the US Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and the EU Polluting Emissions Register (EPER). Based on an analysis of firms in the oil and gas sector, and specifically of the environmental performance of oil refineries, we find that corporate reports are of very limited value when seeking to compare and contrast levels of environmental performance at the site level, but that a significant body of useful information is provided by public registers such as the US TRI and the EU EPER. Drawing upon these data, we find significant variations in corporate environmental performance across the US and the EU, and we note the existence of significant correlations between higher levels of emissions and lower levels of employment and income in the areas where industrial facilities are located. We then discuss the relevance of our findings to broader debates on corporate environmentalism and corporate social responsibility. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.