The relationship between R&D and firm performance is highly dependent on the external environment. Therefore, this paper examined the effects of country level investor protection (safeguards) and governance mechanisms (systems) on the relationship between R&D and firm performance. Using GMM estimation and elasticity testing of panel data for 423 firms from 12 emerging countries, we find that a country's safeguards tend to moderate the relationship between R&D and firm performance more than the system of a country. The results indicate that safeguarding is relatively more important for the relationship between R&D and firm performance than other country level governance mechanisms, as the former can easily attract outside capital when it is strong. These results have significant implications for innovation policy. In particular, managers may wish to strengthen investor protection to promote high R&D investment in order to increase firm performance.

Despite the growing research on the influence of stakeholder integration on organizational outcomes, our understanding of the specific firm-level conditions that may mediate the relationship between stakeholder integration and financial performance is lacking. Using primary data gathered from 233 small and medium-sized enterprises in Ghana, we found empirical support for our contention that the link between stakeholder integration and financial performance is mediated by a firm's environmental sustainability orientation. In addition, our study demonstrated that competitive intensity moderates the indirect relationship between stakeholder integration and financial performance in such a way that the indirect effect through environmental sustainability orientation is stronger for higher levels of industry competition. We discuss theoretical and managerial implications of these findings.

In this paper, we examine how and when chief executive officers' (CEOs') reputation enhances environmental innovation by considering quality management as a mediating mechanism of this relationship. In addition, we introduce stakeholder pressures (primary and secondary stakeholder pressures) as important contingencies of the relationship between CEOs' reputation and quality management. Moreover, we test the moderating role of resource commitment on the quality management‐environmental innovation relationship. We test our research model using data from a manufacturing industry sample of 217 firms from Ghana. We find that quality management mediates the relationship between reputation and environmental innovation. Moreover, the relationship between CEOs' reputation and quality management is amplified when levels of both primary and secondary stakeholder pressures are greater. Finally, our findings show that the effect of quality management on environmental innovation is enhanced when resource commitment is greater. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

This is a repository copy of Leverage and firm investment: the role of information asymmetry and growth.

Despite the widespread recognition of the paybacks of "going green" and "going clean", limited research has focused on the impact of lean-green strategy on firm growth. In this study, we contribute to strategy and environmental sustainability literatures by investigating the possibility that the influence on lean-green strategy and firm growth is driven by different levels of industry competition, managerial power and family ties. Using panel data from 732 firms in four major industrialised economies (the US, Germany, France and the UK), we found that lean-green strategy positively relates to firm growth and this relationship is amplified at higher levels of competition, managerial power and family ties. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are also discussed.