Drawing on institutional and signaling theories, this study examines how environmental corporate social responsibility affects firm performance in a dysfunctional institutional environment. We extend the ECSR literature by suggesting that ECSR indirectly influences firm performance through the mediating effects of business and political legitimacy. Based on a dataset of 238 firms in China, we find that ECSR affects business and political legitimacy followed by firm performance. Moreover, legal incompleteness weakens and legal inefficiency strengthens the effects of ECSR on business and (...) political legitimacy. (shrink)

China is the world’s second largest economy and the largest emitter of carbon dioxide, yet we know little about environmental proactivity in the most populated country in the world. We address this gap through a survey of 161 Chinese companies with two respondents per firm (N = 322), where we seek to identify the antecedents and consequences of environmental proactivity. We identify two categorizations of environmental proactivity: Environmental operational improvements and environmental reporting. We find that ecological motivations and regulatory stakeholder (...) pressure are positively related to both types of environmental proactivity, and external stakeholder pressure is negatively related to environmental reporting. Furthermore, we find that (1) if a firm is environmentally proactive (as it relates to either measure) and they are ecologically motivated, there is a positive and significant cost advantage, and (2) if a firm makes use of environmental operational improvement and they are competitively motivated, there is a positive and significant reputation advantage. Implications for researchers, managers, and policy-makers in China are discussed. (shrink)

Our study examines how a company’s engagement in corporate social responsibility influences word of mouth about the company on Twitter, particularly during a service delay. We use the airline industry as the study context. On the popular social medium Twitter, people post tweets about airline services and raise concerns about service delays when flights are delayed, canceled, or diverted. Drawing on the literature on legitimacy and the halo effect, we argue that a company’s CSR engagement enhances its corporate image, which (...) in turn, influences WOM about the company on Twitter. We predict and find that airlines with better CSR engagement receive more positive word of mouth and less negative word of mouth on Twitter. We also find that service delays reduce PWOM and increase NWOM, with the additional finding that the positive relationship between service delays and NWOM is less strong for airlines with better CSR engagement. We conduct additional analyses to investigate the effects of environmental, social, and governance CSR on PWOM and NWOM. Our study has practical implications in informing companies about the benefits of CSR engagement in relation to public opinion during service delays. (shrink)

Does being green facilitate product innovation? This study examines whether green management in firms operating in China fosters radical product innovation to a greater extent than it does incremental product innovation and investigates the underlying institutional mechanisms involved in the relationship between green management and product innovation. The findings show that green management is more likely to lead to radical product innovation than to incremental product innovation. Moreover, government support as a formal institutional benefit more strongly mediates the effect of (...) green management on radical product innovation than its effect on incremental product innovation; whereas social legitimacy as an informal institutional benefit more strongly mediates the effect of green management on incremental product innovation than its effect on radical product innovation. These findings provide important implications for explaining how firms employ green management to facilitate product innovation. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to examine stakeholder identification and prioritization by managers using the power, legitimacy, and urgency framework of Mitchell et al. (Academy of Management Review 22, 853–886; 1997). We use a multi-method, comparative case study of two large-scale sporting event organizing committees, with a particular focus on interviews with managers at three hierarchical levels. We support the positive relationship between number of stakeholder attributes and perceived stakeholder salience. Managers’ hierarchical level and role have direct and moderating (...) effects on stakeholder identification and perceived salience. We also found that most stakeholders were definitive, dominant, or dormant types – the other five types were rare. Power has the most important effect on salience, followed by urgency and legitimacy. Based on our case study, we offer several ways to advance the theory of stakeholder identification and salience. (shrink)

This conceptual article applies the customer value (CV) concept in the context of green marketing aiming to provide insights on the factors that motivate and/or hinder the development of consumer–green brand relationships. The article draws upon existing literature on the streams of CV, relationship marketing and environmental behaviour and synthesises relevant findings to propose an integrated conceptual framework entailing all identified types of value and cost, psychographic characteristics, as well as dimensions of relationship quality (RQ) and loyalty. Furthermore, it addresses (...) existing questions on the links among constructs and proposes several relationships that may lead to a better understanding of consumer behaviour towards green brands. Through the here-proposed conceptual model, the article initiates the process of empirically examining the consumer adoption of and relationship development with green brands. The CV framework adopted here may provide practitioners with knowledge on the value and sacrifice factors, as well as the dimensions of RQ that are the most important in targeting green consumers and designing relationship marketing strategies. The article also fulfils an identified gap in the literature, as it is the first that brings together and applies research findings from CV and relationship marketing fields in the green marketing context and proposes an integrated approach to understanding consumer–green brands relationships. (shrink)

A steady demand for green products from concerned consumers has led companies to introduce new product lines that match or exceed consumer environmental concerns. Nonetheless, not all the organizations were able to achieve significant returns on their investments in green products. These failures are generally attributed towards companies’ inability to overcome consumer scepticism towards the performance of functional and green attributes of their brands to generate a positive green image and green value in consumers mind. Therefore, the question arises that (...) does the success in promoting green brand image and value depend on consumer existing perceptions about the brand quality and credibility? This study analyzes the influence of brand perceive quality and credibility on consumer perceptions towards a brand green image, green value and green equity. A theoretical model with hypothesized relationships is developed and tested to answer these research questions. Data have been collected from the consumers of electrical and electronic goods. The hypothesized relationships were tested with the help of structural equation modeling procedure. The results suggest that brand perceived quality and its overall credibility does have a significant influence on generating a greener image, green perceive value and green brand equity. (shrink)

This article revisits and further develops Mitchell et al.’s (Acad Manag Rev 22(4):853–886, 1997 ) theory of stakeholder identification and salience. Stakeholder salience holds considerable unrealized potential for understanding how organizations may best manage multiple stakeholder relationships. While the salience framework has been cited numerous times, attempts to develop it further have been relatively limited. We begin by reviewing the key contributions of other researchers. We then identify and seek to resolve three residual weaknesses in Mitchell et al.’s ( 1997 (...) ) framework, thereby strengthening its foundations for further development. We argue, first, that urgency is not relevant for identifying stakeholders; second, that it is primarily the moral legitimacy of the stakeholder’s claim that applies to stakeholder salience; and last, that the salience of stakeholders will vary as the degrees of the attributes vary. These insights inform revised definitions of stakeholder salience and legitimacy, and necessitate a new theoretical underpinning for the role of legitimacy. Finally, we present an extensive agenda for future research with the objective of refueling research in stakeholder salience. (shrink)

Drawing on the natural-resource-based view, we propose that employee stakeholder integration is linked to environmental performance through firms’ proactive environmental strategies, and that this link is contingent on shared vision. We tested our model with a cross-country and multi-industry sample. In support of our theory, results revealed that firms’ proactive environmental strategies translated employee stakeholder integration into environmental performance. This relationship was pronounced for high levels of shared vision. Our findings demonstrate that shared vision represents a key condition for advancing (...) the corporate greening agenda through proactive environmental strategies. We discuss implications for the CSR and the environmental management literatures, with a particular focus on the NRBV and stakeholder integration debates. (shrink)

Growing detrimental effects on the bio-physical environment have been responsible for a large number of small firms to adopt a more strategic stance toward exploiting green-related opportunities. This article aims to shed light on how internal company factors help to formulate a green business strategy among small manufacturing firms, and how this, in turn, influences their competitive advantage and performance. Based on data received from 153 small Cypriot manufacturers, we propose and test a conceptual model anchored on the Resource-based View (...) of the firm. The findings underscore the critical role of both organizational resources and capabilities in pursuing a green business strategy. The adoption of this strategy was more evident in the case of firms operating in more harmful, as opposed to less harmful, industries. The implementation of a green business strategy was found to generate a positional competitive advantage, with this association becoming stronger under conditions of high regulatory intensity, high market dynamism, high public concern, and high competitive intensity. It was also revealed that this competitive advantage is conducive to gaining heightened market and financial performance. Our study makes a fivefold contribution: it injects a theoretical perspective into a relatively atheoretic field, underlines the role of organizational resources/capabilities as drivers of eco-friendly initiatives, highlights the often neglected strategic aspects of small firms’ ecological business activities, stresses the contingent role of external forces in moderating the positive impact of small firm green business strategy on competitive advantage, and focuses on the performance implications of the small firm’s engagement in environmental operations. (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)

For many energy companies in China, green brand strategy is becoming an important approach to enhance competitive advantage. However, greenwashing behaviors result in a crisis of trust. Existing research focuses on green marketing, but is silent on the institutional view of the trust crisis resulting from greenwashing by energy brands. Thus, this study takes a decoupling perspective from institutional theory and considers legitimacy, energy policy management, and green brand theories to shed light on the path from the decoupling of an (...) energy brand from green promise to green energy brand trust and the role of brand legitimacy and brand loyalty. It then analyzes survey data to conclude that DEBG not only has a direct negative effect on GEBT but also has an indirect influence through the vital mediating role of green energy brand legitimacy. Moreover, brand loyalty is a moderating factor and can alleviate the energy brand trust crisis. These findings not only can enrich the theories of energy brand management and green marketing but also offer important implications for energy policy management. (shrink)

This study utilizes hierarchical regression analysis to explore how environmental management systems influence financial performance through customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, and the moderating effects of switching cost. The originality of the present research is to unpack the “black box” through which a firm can profit from EMSs. The empirical results indicate that EMSs have positive and significant impacts on customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and financial performance. In addition, switching cost negatively and significantly moderates the relationship between EMSs and customer (...) satisfaction, but does not significantly moderates the relationship between EMSs and customer loyalty. The results also demonstrate that customer satisfaction and customer loyalty partially mediate the relationship between EMSs and financial performance. Our findings highlight that customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and switching cost play important roles for a firm to profit from EMSs. (shrink)

Research shows that commitment-based interventions are among the most effective strategies to encourage pro-environmental behaviors, but methods to elicit commitments from a large number of individuals are often costly and unrealistic. Predictions requests—a commitment-type strategy—are an effective mass-communication strategy and have the potential to influence pro-environmental behavior among large audiences. This research is the first to demonstrate that prediction requests in a consumer behavior context influence preference for environmentally friendly products. In addition, this research examines the role of individual and (...) contextual factors in influencing the efficacy of prediction requests. Study 1 shows that exposure to an advertisement with a prediction request leads to increased preferences for environmentally sustainable household cleaning products, compared to a control advertisement, and that this effect is greater when the prediction request is paired with an audience cue . Study 2 indicates that the effect of prediction requests on preference for sustainable products is greater for individuals with interdependent self-construal. Substantive implications and directions for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Do firms gain environmental legitimacy when they conform to external expectations regarding the natural environment? Drawing on institutional logic and signaling theory, we investigate sources of heterogeneity in the impacts of environmental actions on environmental legitimacy. Longitudinal data about 325 publicly traded U.S. firms in polluting industries support the notion that environmental actions help firms gain environmental legitimacy. However, some actions instead can harm this legitimacy if environmental performance deteriorates and the firm is subject to intense scrutiny from nongovernmental organizations. (...) Thus, an important contribution of this research is to identify conditions under which greenwashing can backfire. (shrink)