Green Firm‐Specific Advantages for Enhancing Environmental and Economic Performance

Abstract

One of the most important determinants of a firm's motivation to invest in higher environmental performance is whether such investments will lead to higher economic returns. Although several studies have explored links between environmental and economic performance, strategic insights into which capabilities and resources drive improved environmental and economic performance are lacking. Nine green firm‐specific advantages (Green FSAs) can facilitate the implementation and enhancement of environmental management practices related to planning, organization, operations, and communications. They are ecosystem services internalization Green FSAs, sustainable thinking Green FSAs, cradle‐to‐cradle Green FSAs, eco‐efficiency Green FSAs, eco‐innovation Green FSAs, solution‐oriented Green FSAs, sustainable reputation Green FSAs, eco‐networking Green FSAs, and localized Green FSAs. These Green FSAs have the potential not only to increase environmental performance, but also to enhance efficiency, reduce waste, improve compliance measures, and save additional costs, all of which will ultimately result in higher levels of economic performance. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Pro-Environmental Change and Short- to Mid-Term Economic Performance

“…With the current state of the knowledge, the results are still inconclusive. To date, other strategic factors also related to environmental proactivity have been prioritised in research about the relationship between environmental and economic performance, such as innovation (Cainelli, Mazzanti, & Zoboli, 2011; Christmann, 2000; Ferreira, Moulang, & Hendro, 2010; Grekova, Bremmers, Trienekens, Kemp, & Omta, 2013; Hall & Wagner, 2012; Singh, Park, Tolmie, & Bartikowski, 2014) or stakeholder management (Nejati, Amran, & Hazlina, 2014; Okoye, Egbunike, & Meduoye, 2013; Plaza-Úbeda et al, 2009; Rodrigue, Magnan, & Boulianne, 2013; Sharma & Vredenburg, 1998; Wagner, 2015). The results of this study will improve the understanding of other internal factors that determine the possibility of achieving additional economic returns through environmental proactivity.…”

Eco-capability role in healthcare facility’s performance

“…Environmental vision about planning and organization can aid firms to develop an organization-wide approach to unify sustainability in all organizational mechanisms. Administration of such formalized criteria for environmental management assists firms to attain higher environmental and economic performance (Singh et al, 2014). Building upon the aforementioned studies and the work of Gabler et al (2015), Leonidou, Leonidou, Fotiadis, and Aykol (2015), and Leonidou, Fotiadis, Christodoulides, Spyropoulou, and Katsikeas (2015), we define an eco-capability as a firm's capacity to deploy environmental human, relationship, and technology resources to enhance firm performance and conserve the natural environment.…”

“…An adverse or nonexistent relationship would signal that an internal change must precede any improvements in external perceptions. Generally, properly deployed capabilities have an optimistic influence on performance (Singh et al, 2014;Teece, 2007). Morgan et al (2009) demonstrate that marketing capabilities, specifically, can increase a firm's return on assets in addition to overall performance.…”

“…In response to this new era, academic research on environmental marketing/management has expanded to cover subjects like environmental resources and capabilities, environmental product development, and performance effects of environmentally driven strategies (Dangelico, 2015;Gabler et al, 2015;Leonidou, Leonidou, Fotiadis, and Aykol, 2015;Leonidou, Fotiadis, Christodoulides, Spyropoulou, and Katsikeas, 2015;Singh et al, 2014;Ozturk and Eraydın, 2010). But the related literature has been silent on two critical matters surrounding environment-related phenomena.…”

“…Second, only by improving competitiveness can a development be sustained in the volatile economic conditions imposed by globalization, necessitating both economic efficiency and high environmental quality among the different actors involved in (Ozturk and Eraydın, 2010), but the factors leading to the creation of an eco-capability and performance remain vague. Researchers have examined the performance outcomes of the firm's environmental behavior to some extent (Gabler et al, 2015;Singh et al, 2014), as regarding knowledge of how eco-capability can enhance the firm's overall performance is limited (Leonidou, Leonidou, Fotiadis, and Aykol, 2015;Leonidou, Fotiadis, Christodoulides, Spyropoulou, and Katsikeas, 2015).…”