Customer pressure and green innovations at third party logistics providers in China

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how customer pressure influences green innovation in the context of Chinese third-party logistics (3PL) providers, and especially the role of organizational culture in moderating this relationship. Design/methodology/approach Based on survey data collected from 165 3PL providers in China, hierarchical moderated regression analysis was conducted to test the hypotheses. Findings Customer pressure is an important driver of green innovation amongst 3PL providers. Flexibility-oriented organizational culture strengthens the effect of this driving force, while control-oriented organizational culture weakens this force. Green innovation significantly contributes to financial performance and flexibility orientation strengthens this contribution, while control orientation weakens it. Research limitations/implications This research examines the contingency effect of organizational culture in helping to resolve inconsistencies in the relationship between customer pressure and green innovation. Although the inconsistencies cannot be resolved completely, the research opens an avenue to explore other contingency factors or the possibility of a non-linear relationship. Practical implications 3PL firms could undertake green innovation to satisfy customers’ environmental requirements. To develop their green innovation initiatives, managers should allow their employees greater autonomy and design (or re-design) operations procedures and regulations to be more flexible, thus enabling the diffusion of green innovation and avoiding or reducing the potential influence of control-oriented organization culture. Originality/value The study considers the conditional effect of organizational culture to reconcile the mixed results in the literature regarding the relationship between customer pressure and green innovation of logistics service providers.

Green Innovation Practices and Its Impacts on Environmental and Organizational Performance

“…This study fills the gap in investigating these constructs in the manufacturing and service industries to enrich existing GI practices and stakeholder pressure literature. Moreover, stakeholder pressure (customer) was examined for GI in third party logistic firms ( Chu et al, 2019 ), as well as in express companies ( Zhang et al, 2020 ), and in manufacturing firms ( Song et al, 2020 ). Those three studies were conducted in China’s context, which highlights the issue of conducting and focusing on the stakeholder pressure in the manufacturing and service industries of Pakistan being a developing economy in the initial stages of GI practices adoption ( Shahzad M. et al, 2020 ).…”

Brazilian logistics practitioners' perceptions on sustainability: an exploratory study

“…Globalization has directly impacted logistics systems in pursuit of efficiency in processes. To be competitive, companies need to integrate sustainable concepts in logistics activities because environmental regulations and consumer pressure are increasing for more sustainable services and products (Chu et al , 2019). In the academic literature, it is possible to find studies regarding sustainable logistics systems, showing the interest of academia and market professionals within the mentioned theme (Bebbington and Thomson, 2013; Chandra and Kumar, 2019; Jozef et al , 2019; Lee and Kim, 2011; Lee and Wu, 2014; Velasco et al , 2018).…”

Supply Chain Practitioners’ Perception on Sustainability: An Empirical Study

“…Companies must conduct their operations following the triple bottom line rule, to be sustainable through the implementation of green supply chain practices. Despite the high costs of the green supply chain and to be competitive, firms need to integrate sustainable practices in their supply chain activities as per customer demands and environmental regulations [29].…”

“…Sustainability is now considered as an essential element of intelligent management [4]. It transformed the organizations to perform unavoidable responsibilities and significant sustainable practices in their supply chain activities, especially logistics, due to customers' demands and increased environmental regulations for more sustainable services and products [28,29]. La Scalia et al stated that most of the sustainable practices aim toward the economic aspect, to reduce the operational costs.…”

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