Moderating Effect of Institutional Responsiveness on the Relationship Between Green Leadership and Green Competitiveness

Abstract

With a growing focus among firms globally on saving energy and increasing environmental awareness, it is critical to explore the implementation of corporate greening in subsidiaries of multinational companies. Multinational companies need to respond simultaneously to institutional requirements and pressures for corporate greening. In this study we utilized the natural-resource-based view to investigate how green leadership can enhance green competitiveness. Based on a quantitative analysis of 212 subsidiaries of multinational companies in China, we found that green leadership positively influences green competitiveness. Further, this relationship was found to be stronger in firms with higher (more active) levels of institutional responsiveness. We highlight practical implications and make suggestions for theoretical development.

Operations in the upper echelons: leading sustainability through stewardship

“…In contrast to the green resource and energy/climate CSRHub objectives, environmental policy and reporting objectives depend much less on operational management decisions (Corbett and Klassen, 2006), relying more directly on transparent disclosure efforts (Kalin and Schuldt, 1991), explicit interests in others (Ilg, 2019) and overt displays of introspection (Lee et al, 2014). Self-awareness, coupled with a sense of organizational interdependency, is fundamental to such informed disclosure (Thornton et al, 2016), as demonstrated in numerous controlled settings (c.f.…”

“…Interest in environmental leadership has grown significantly, both in practice and across various disciplines in the academy (Sharma and Vredenburg, 1998;Avolio et al, 1999;Lee et al, 2014;Vera and Crossan, 2004;Thornton et al, 2016;Vlachos et al, 2017;Ilg, 2019). Although Corbett and Klassen note that environmental leadership "is provoking a powerful paradigm shift" (2006, p. 5) in how operations management (OM) norms and cultures have advanced from the highest levels of organizations, the topic has received more selective attention in the OM domain (Porter and van der Linde, 1995;King and Lenox, 2001;Rothernberg et al, 2001;Cheung et al, 2017).…”

The dilemma of institutional duality and multinational firms 1967-2017

“…Other recent research similarly found that institutional pressures stem from both the parent company and host country's context, thereby heaping operational difficulty on the subsidiary and forcing it to adopt strange norms (Yi et al, 2013;Hsu et al, 2014;Yang and Su, 2014;Nell et al, 2015;Carney et al, 2016;Li and Ding, 2017). Earlier ID research likewise shows that MNC subsidiaries are confronted by huge external pressures, as they navigate between countries (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983;Scott, 1995;Devinney et al, 2000;Edwards et al, 2002;Paik and Sohn, 2004;Hillman and Wan, 2005;Husted and Allen, 2006;Tempel et al, 2006;Karhunen, 2008;Marin and Costa, 2013;Lee et al, 2014).…”

“…MNC makes efforts to organize and gainer more resources such as managerial talent so as to acquire resources for competitive advantage (Johnston and Menguc, 2007). Leadership that encourages a corporation to make maximum use of natural resources mitigates external threats due to available built-up capacity (Lee et al, 2014). Companies gain competitive and resource advantages by political application of corporate social responsibility schemes (Frynas and Stephens, 2015).…”

“…Moreover, I draw on articles from the fields of IB, management, administration, entrepreneurship, organization, human resources, marketing, economics, development, technology, corporate governance and sociology. I then pay attention to the challenges of ID confronting the global strategy of the MNC (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983;Lee et al, 2014;Nell et al, 2015;Carney et al, 2016;Van Grinsven et al, 2016;Schmitt et al, 2016). Publications linked to the theme of the research were screened for review, using the following keywords: institutional duality and multinational firm, external environment and the subsidiary, theories and factors of institutional duality, MNC behavior and institutional duality, multinational firms and integration, multinational firm and responsiveness or autonomy, headquarters-subsidiaries, institutional duality and integration-responsiveness.…”