How bricolage influences green management in high‐polluting manufacturing firms: The role of stakeholder engagement

Abstract

As green management (GM) matters not only for firms' competitiveness but also has social and health benefits, both the public and government often expect firms to apply it. However, the current literature fails to provide a detailed explanation of how emerging market firms in high‐polluting manufacturing (HPM) industries deal with challenges when applying GM activities, even though these firms may be a key source of environmental problems. To address this research gap, we draw upon a subjectivist view of resource construction to investigate how and when HPM firms in emerging economies can rely on the tactic of bricolage to boost GM. We tested our research model on a sample of 180 chemical engineering manufacturing firms in China. Our results showed that HPM firms can rely on bricolage to positively implement GM, but its effects depend on the participation of different stakeholders. That is, firms can benefit more from bricolage in implementing GM when their suppliers can provide strong technical support and the moral requirements of the public are high. This study highlights the role of subjective resource construction activities in GM with the help of different stakeholder's participation in emerging economies and provides novel explanations and policy implications for this emerging phenomenon.

Coopetition relations, suppliers' effectuation, and manufacturers' green management: Evidence from China

“…This reconciles the existing debate about SCM effects on GM (Ahmed et al, 2020;Kobarg et al, 2020;Wu et al, 2020). This is done by verifying that supplier-firm cooperation can enhance a manufacturing firm's GM by providing complementarity engineering and manufacturing technologies (Wu & Liu, 2022), supplying green raw materials and components (Andersén, 2021), and providing necessary knowledge and information for GM (Zhao et al, 2018).…”

“…and derived from the literature (e.g., Chandler et al, 2011;Jaworski & Kohli, 1993;Li et al, 2011;Qian et al, 2013;Shu et al, 2016). We incorporated five control variables-firm age, size, stage, R&D intensity, and technological uncertainty-according to existing relevant studies that provide alternative explanations for GM performance (e.g., Shu et al, 2016;Wu & Liu, 2022;Zhou et al, 2019). The measurements of firm age, size, stage, and R&D intensity are shown in Table 4.…”

“…Manufacturing firms are essential to advancing civilization and economic prosperity (Thurner & Proskuryakova, 2014), providing significant social wealth through the satisfaction of diverse human needs. Unfortunately, the production process of these products is often accompanied by wastewater, gases, and residues (Wu & Liu, 2022), which can cause serious damage to groundwater resources, air pollution, and ecological degradation (Luo et al, 2018; Wong, 2017) if not properly addressed. To this end, much attention has been devoted to GM, which focuses on developing green products and reducing pollution that may harm public health and the environment (e.g., Pinheiro et al, 2022; Yang et al, 2018; Zhou et al, 2019).…”

“…In order to tackle GM issues, a variety of solutions have been proposed and implemented, such as bricolage through subjective resource‐recombination (Wu & Liu, 2022), resource development and utilization (Foo et al, 2021), technology enhancement (Pinheiro et al, 2022), and strategic changes and organizational innovation (Zhou et al, 2019). As manufacturing firms may not possess the necessary resources and information to undertake complex technology independently, collaborating with suppliers is a viable alternative (Kulangara et al, 2022; Shah & Soomro, 2021; Zhang, Pan, & Feng, 2020; Zhang, Pan, Jiang, & Feng, 2020).…”

Effect of Environmental Turbulence on New Product Development: A Case of Serial Mediation of Strategic Flexibility and Bricolage in High-Tech Industries of Chengdu, China

“…Bricolage initiates new product development pathways by using everything you have at home to discover the surroundings and related opportunities (Suire, 2019). In their study, Wu & Liu (2022) showed that organizations could use bricolage to innovate green products positively, but the effects depend on the participation of various stakeholders. The quality of a product can be improved by an adequate understanding of the product and practical testing of the product concept, which gives a clear picture of the product and provides insights into the product development.…”