Influence of Network Embeddedness and Network Diversity on Green Innovation: The Mediation Effect of Green Social Capital

Abstract

Due to the current rise in concern about the challenge of global warming, stakeholders are now more conscious than in the past regarding environmental concerns. Stakeholders are more likely than ever before to support companies that are environmentally friendly. Simultaneously, companies seek to develop their social networks in such a way as to enhance their green innovation. This study investigates the influences of network embeddedness and network diversity on green innovation. In addition, this research discusses the mediation effects of green social capital. We adopt structural equation modeling for testing the research framework. A total of 330 valid questionnaires are collected. The results demonstrate that network embeddedness positively affects green social capital and green innovation performance. However, although network diversity positively affects green innovation performance, it does not significantly influence green social capital. Furthermore, the study indicates that green social capital partially mediates the relationship between network embeddedness and green innovation performance.

Management of Green Intellectual Capital: Evidence-Based Literature Review and Future Directions

“…In addition to innovative products, GRC mediated the relationship between network embeddedness and green innovation performance (meant as the performance reached through the organization's green innovation) [47]. This means that network embeddedness can affect green innovation performance both directly and through green social capital [62]. The association between GRR and environmental performance was confirmed by two recent studies, that reported a direct link between the two [65], as well as a mediated link by means of GHRM practices [83].…”

“…The remaining six studies either addressed GIC as a general construct (N = 2), thus calculating a general "green intellectual capital" score [57,58], or focused on specific GIC dimensions of the tripartite model of IC (N = 8), thus focusing on human [47,[59][60][61], on social capital [62], on structural capital [63], on organizational and social capital [64], or on human and relational capital [65].…”

“…Among the selected works, only twelve studies identified GIC antecedents. The most mentioned antecedent was environmental consciousness [13,57,73,86], followed by corporate social responsibility (CSR) [13,59,86], GHRM [61,70], corporate environmental ethics [47], strategic intent [71], technological distance [63], and network embeddedness [62]. According to these papers, the association between environmental consciousness and GIC is related to the positive representation of green issues that characterize firms with high levels of environmental consciousness.…”

“…The more the green social capital is acquired from networks or inter-firm activities, the more resources and knowledge are, in turn, obtained from those. More frequent interactions between members in a network are more conductive to the establishment of green social capital [62].…”

Effects of R&D, networking and leadership roles on environmental innovation adoption in Vietnam’s SMEs

“…In particular, cooperation with suppliers and universities is significantly associated with the probability of environmental innovation, while cooperation with customers does not lead to any important difference. More recently, Chen et al (2019) examined the effects of networks on green innovation. Their study illustrates that network embeddedness and network diversity are positively associated with green innovation performance.…”