The issue of the green development of industrial enterprises has become the focus of attention of all parties. However, the driving factors of green development behavior and performance in industrial enterprises remains unexplored. What are the driving factors of green development behavior and performance in industrial enterprises? How does the theoretical model of green development behavior and performance in industrial enterprises work? In order to reveal the driving factors of green development behavior and performance in industrial enterprises, this paper develops a theoretical model and tests the model through the evidence of Chinese industrial enterprises. Based on the further study of in-depth interview materials from 52 employees in industrial enterprises, this paper takes industrial enterprises as the research object and constructs a theoretical model by using a grounded theory method. The results show that 40 initial concepts, 10 initial categories, four main categories and three core categories are obtained through the coding step of grounded theory. The study found the following three conclusions: (1) The green development of industrial enterprise exists in the organization in the form of specific behavioral expressions; (2) The green development of industrial enterprise caused the occurrence of green development behavior of industrial enterprises. The external factors of industrial enterprise green development consist of the environment of policy and institutional, market environment and public supervision. The internal factors of industrial enterprise green development are composed of tangible and intangible resources of enterprises; (3) The occurrence of industrial enterprise green development behavior has led to the consequence of green development of industrial enterprises. The consequence is embodied in the green development performance of industrial enterprises, including corporate financial performance, corporate environmental performance and corporate social performance. In addition, some management implications are presented based on the research findings. This research enriches the field of green development theory, business development theory and green behavior research. This study also provides a reference for exploring theoretical models of industrial enterprise green development in other countries and regions of the world.

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Industrial enterprises have provided outstanding contributions to economic development in countries around the world. The green development of industrial enterprises has received widespread attention from researchers. However, existing research lacks the tools to scientifically measure the green development behavior and performance of industrial enterprises. According to the theory of green development behavior and performance of industrial enterprises (GDBP-IE), the aim of this paper is to provide a tool for scientifically measuring such behavior and performance. This paper determined the initial scale through literature analysis and expert discussions and obtained valid samples from 31 provincial administrative regions in China through field and online surveys (N = 853). The exploratory factor analysis method was used to test the reliability and validity of the scale. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) The reliability and validity of the GDBP-IE scale are good; (2) the GDBP-IE scale, with a total of 70 items, comprises four sub-scales: The internal factors sub-scale, the external factors sub-scale, the green development behavior of industrial enterprises sub-scale, and the green development performance of industrial enterprises sub-scale. Among them, the internal factors sub-scale, with a total of 13 items, consists of two dimensions: Corporate tangible resources and corporate intangible resources. The external factors sub-scale, with a total of 23 items, consists of three dimensions: Market environment; public supervision; policy and institutional environment. The green development behavior of industrial enterprises sub-scale, with a total of 18 items, consists of two dimensions: Clean production behavior and green supply chain management practice. The green development performance of industrial enterprises sub-scale, with a total of 16 items, comprises three dimensions: Corporate social performance, corporate financial performance, and corporate environmental performance. The findings enrich the research on corporate organizational behavior, green behavior, and green development system theory, and provide tools for further empirical testing. The development and verification of green development behavior and performance of industrial enterprises can help guide various types of industrial enterprises in transforming to green development and can provide a reference for the government to formulate targeted green development policies.

Although the theory of green development behavior and performance of industrial enterprises (GDBP-IE) reveals that the green development behavior (GDB) of industrial enterprises is affected by internal and external factors and produces performance, it lacks a clear mechanism. This paper aims to verify the theory of GDBP-IE and reveals the mechanism of GDBP-IE in the Chinese context. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method was used to analyze valid samples of Chinese industrial enterprises (N = 615). The empirical conclusions are as follows. (1) Corporate tangible resources, corporate intangible resources (CIR), market environment, public supervision and policy and institutional environment (PIE) have a significant positive effect on GDB (i.e., green supply chain management practice and clean production behavior). (2) Compared with other factors, the positive effect of CIR on GDB is the strongest. (3) The level of positive effect of PIE on GDB is not as significant as other factors. (4) GDB has a significant positive effect on green development performance (i.e., corporate social performance, corporate financial performance and corporate environmental performance). This paper provides effective evidence for researchers to use other methods to further verify the theory of GDBP-IE in the Chinese context. This paper also provides an opportunity for cluster analysis of GDBP-IE in different countries or regions. In addition, this paper not only gives a targeted reference for the government to formulate guidelines concerning the green development of industrial enterprises but also encourages industrial enterprise managers to formulate green development strategies, which is a way to help industrial enterprise managers and workers to participate in and comply with GDB.

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This paper identifies the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics, research hotspots, research frontiers and knowledge base of green development research by using the bibliometric method, mapping knowledge domains and spatial analysis method, and through making a comparison of green development research between China and foreign. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) The number of research literature on green development in China and aboard both show a trend of increasing year by year, and the gap of annual volume evolve a M-shaped trend compared with international scholars. The United States and China are both major countries in green development research, and their international academic cooperation is relatively close. Moreover, the main research findings are concentrated in the northern hemisphere while there is less distribution in the southern hemisphere, and the eastern and western hemispheres are distributed widely. (2) The research hotspots of China’s green development mainly include development concepts, regional and urban development and ecological environment while international green development mainly include green economy, framework, city and supply chain management. (3) The frontiers of China’s green development research are focused on coordinated development, ecological environment and green development concepts while international green development research are more abundant. (4) The knowledge base of the research includes Manuscript of Economics and Philosophy in 1844, the concept of sustainable development and the theory of two mountains.

For a long time, the resource curse had been widely concerned by researchers all over the world, especially in China. At present, China is in the transition stage from high-speed economic growth to high-quality development, and innovation and talents are important drivers. However, the existing research lacked an empirical test on resource curse and its transmission mechanism at the provincial level in China at this stage. In order to test the mechanism of transformation and upgrading of resource-based regions in the period of high-quality economic development, this study used the panel data of 30 provincial administrative regions of Chinese mainland (not including Tibet) from 2007 to 2017 to build a multi-step, multi-mediation model, and explored the direct and indirect impact mechanism of resource dependence on the high-quality economic development using the bootstrap method and generalized least square method. The key findings of this study were as follows: (1) The high-quality economic development level in the central and western provinces of China had been in a backward position compared with the eastern provinces. (2) There was a “resource curse” in the stage of high-quality economic development at the provincial level in China. (3) In terms of transmission mechanism, resource dependence had a negative impact on the high-quality economic development through the crowding-out effect of innovation investment and talents. Our conclusion provides a theoretical reference for other countries and regions to explore the relationship between resource dependence and high-quality economic development and may inform the economic development strategies by policymakers that wish to transform and upgrade the resource-based regional economy.

The Green Technology Innovation Behavior (GTIB) of construction enterprises is crucial for promoting green development in the construction industry. In order to clarify the mechanism of action affecting the GTIB of construction enterprises, this paper considers the context of green development in the construction industry based on the vector autoregressive model and constructs a theoretical model of GTIB in construction enterprises. Time series data collected by the Chinese government (2000–2018) were used to analyze the mechanism of action of the factors influencing the GTIB of construction enterprises by EViews 10.0. The results of the paper showed the following: (1) direct government investment has the greatest impact on the GTIB of construction enterprises and has made a positive contribution; (2) the added value of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the construction industry has a relatively small impact on the GTIB of construction enterprises; (3) the role of environmental regulation on the GTIB of construction enterprises is non-linear. This paper further broadens the research to the factors influencing the GTIB of construction enterprises. Meanwhile, this paper provides a reference basis for local governments to formulate policies related to the GTIB of construction enterprises.