Can proactive boundary‐spanning search enhance green innovation? The mediating role of organizational resilience

Abstract

Green innovation is critical for firms' sustainable development, and its antecedents have attracted extensive attention. However, how proactive boundary-spanning search enhances firms' green innovation remains unclear. Building on the resourcebased view and dynamic capabilities theory, we explore the impact of proactive boundary-spanning search on firms' green innovation and investigate the mediating role of two types of organizational resilience. Survey data are collected from 218 manufacturing firms in China, and hierarchical regression and bootstrap analysis are used to test hypotheses. The results demonstrate that proactive boundaryspanning search not only has an inverted U-shaped relationship with radical green innovation and incremental green innovation, but also has an inverted U-shaped relationship with precursor resilience and improvisation resilience. Moreover, the results show that precursor resilience and improvisation resilience partially mediate the inverted U-shaped relationship between proactive boundary-spanning search and the two types of green innovation. This research reveals the nonlinear relationship between proactive boundary-spanning search and green innovation, which enriches the research of green innovation by considering organizational resilience.

How do supply chain managers perceive the relationship between resilience and sustainability practices? An exploratory study

“…Regarding trade‐offs, our findings are very much aligned with previous research about the maintenance of redundant capacity (Govindan et al, 2015; Karutz et al, 2018; Wang et al, 2022). Supply chain managers perceive redundancies as socially and environmentally unsustainable, to the extent that buffer inventory to prevent risks together with slack resources and transient supplier relationships to maintain responsiveness necessarily constitutes waste if risks do not materialize.…”

The double‐edged sword effect of organizational resilience on ESG performance

“…First, this research contributes to the organizational resilience and ESG performance literature by exploring the positive and negative effects of organizational resilience on ESG performance. Prior research has mainly explored the positive effects of organizational resilience on the sub‐dimensions of ESG performance (Beuren et al, 2022; Cakir & Yerin Guneri, 2011; Li et al, 2022; Rai et al, 2021; Wang, Xue, & Yang, 2022; Yang & Zhao, 2022). Only a limited number of studies have mentioned the potential negative effects of organizational resilience.…”

“…On the one hand, scholars have explored the positive effects of organizational resilience. Specifically, in terms of environmental dimensions, scholars have explored the impact of organizational resilience on green innovation (Wang, Xue, & Yang, 2022) and energy consumption (Li et al, 2022). In terms of social dimensions, scholars have mainly explored the impact of organizational resilience on health and safety (Li et al, 2022), product innovation (Akgun & Keskin, 2014), employee satisfaction and happiness (Beuren et al, 2022; Wut et al, 2022), service quality (Annarelli et al, 2020), social sustainability (Rai et al, 2021), and community resilience (McKnight & Linnenluecke, 2016).…”

“…A plethora of studies have explored the positive impact of organizational resilience on the sub‐dimensions of ESG performance, such as green innovation (Wang, Xue, & Yang, 2022), health and safety (Li et al, 2022), social‐economic sustainability (Rai et al, 2021), employee happiness and job satisfaction (Beuren et al, 2022; Wut et al, 2022), empowerment (Cakir & Yerin Guneri, 2011; Rodríguez‐Sánchez et al, 2021), and risk taking (Yang & Zhao, 2022). A few scholars have suggested that the building of organizational resilience may come at a cost (Li & Zhu, 2021; Shan et al, 2021; Williams et al, 2017), and may reduce efficiency or well‐being (Chaigneau et al, 2022; Galaitsi et al, 2021), which may inhibit environmental, social and governance performance.…”

Impact of digital capability on firm resilience: the moderating role of coopetition behavior

“…In summary, digital capability breaks the traditional knowledge search mode and provides innovative methods for knowledge search, increasing the timeliness of knowledge search. Knowledge search can further help enterprises overcome development difficulties and improve firm resilience, enhancing sustainable advantages (Wang et al, 2022). In fact, the stronger an enterprise's digital capability is, the more channels it has to acquire internal and external knowledge, and the more it helps to enhance firm resilience.…”