Accelerating Green Innovation Performance from the Relations of Network Potential, Absorptive Capacity, and Environmental Turbulence

Abstract

The demand for sustainable development and the advantages of industries are expediting over time with the triggering of green innovation performance (GIP). Improving a firm’s GIP, especially in manufacturing industries, can accelerate green development and mitigate the global-concerned environmental issues. Thus, to investigate GIP from its antecedent factors, we delineate the relationship between network potential, absorptive capacity, environmental turbulence, and GIP based on social network theory, organizational learning theory, and contingency theory. We tested our hypotheses based on 233 sets of questionnaire surveys from high-tech manufacturing firms in China through deploying the hierarchical regression and bootstrap method. Our empirical findings reveal that the network potential dimensions, including network position centrality (NPC), network structure richness (NSR), and network relationship closeness (NRC), significantly positively impacted the GIP. The absorptive capacity (AC) partially mediated the relationship between the network potential dimensions and GIP. Environmental turbulence (ET) as an essential mechanism not only positively moderated the relationship between AC and GIP but also enhanced the AC mediation effect. These findings indicate that manufacturing firms should continue to improve network potential and AC and respond rapidly to changes in the external environment to enhance GIP, consequently contributing to the sustainable development of the economy.

Green Innovation Sustainability: How Green Market Orientation and Absorptive Capacity Matter?

“…The results indicate that green absorptive capacity has a positive impact on green product innovation and green process innovation. This finding is in harmony with prior research that supports the positive impact of green knowledge acquisition and utilization on green innovation adoption [77,78]. Firms tend to absorb external knowledge concerning the negative impact of their operations on the environment such as the impact of pollution, waste, and other environmental outcomes, and combine the new knowledge with their knowledge base to facilitate the adoption of green product innovation practices and green process innovation practices into their operations.…”

“…Firms' focus on market intelligence imparts a clear compass heading for their green innovation efforts, along with a strong consensus to better utilize external technological knowledge through coordinated integration of distinct functional expertise to fulfill the ultimate purpose of green innovation. As Renko et al [77] show, market orientation and absorptive capacity may not be unique resources, individually, and cannot develop into successful innovations, but their combination can create a unique resource and capability for firms. A proper condition configuration of green market orientation and absorptive capacity would enhance firms' green knowledge concerning their market demands and technological information.…”

Towards Micro-Level Green Growth: A Framework to Recognize Corporate Growth Status, Path and Adopt Eco-Innovations

“…The CEE value in the future scenario can be higher than in the past scenario. This growth path is a likely development direction for most enterprises and governments, as constant CEE improvements are more practical and feasible [11,12]. (c) Acceptable Growth Path: Non-profitable enterprises that are willing to prevent serious environmental problems and who are even willing to undergo ecological restoration take this path.…”

“…To attain sustainability in both business and society, green growth must be actualized at the enterprise level [11,12]. Different from the universal concept of green growth at the macro level, this study introduced the term micro-level green growth to denote the vision of corporate green development.…”

Tax Incentives, R&D Manipulation, and Corporate Innovation Performance: Evidence from Listed Companies in China

“…The risks of R&D activities themselves will hinder the improvement of enterprises' R&D input intensity; for example, in R&D failure or a long product recovery cycle, the output is not proportional to the input, and R&D achievements are imitated by peers [16,17]. At present, China mainly uses preferential tax policies to encourage enterprises to increase R&D investment levels.…”