Organizational Learning and Green Innovation: Does Environmental Proactivity Matter?

Authors

Yali Zhang
Jun Sun, The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyFollow
Zhaojun Yang
Shurong Li

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-17-2018

Abstract

Emerging economies face the challenge of striking a balance between development and the environment. To adapt to the changes, organizations must develop dynamic capabilities for green innovation and corporate sustainability. Based on a resource-based view integrated with contingency and stakeholder theories, this study examines how strategic contingency makes differences in the transformation between learning and performance resources through innovation efforts. Oriented toward external and internal stakeholders, respectively, learning resources comprise absorptive capacity and transformative capability, innovation efforts include green product innovation and green process innovation, and performance resources contain green image and competitive advantage. Depicting their mediating relationships moderated by environmental proactivity, the research model is supported by survey observations collected from over 300 organizations in China. Environmentally proactive organizations are found to have more balanced dynamic capability development than those that are more reactive. To optimize green innovation, therefore, organizations need to embrace an ecological strategy and engage employees in learning.

Comments

Original published version available at http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su10103737

Recommended Citation

Zhang, Y., Sun, J., Yang, Z., & Li, S. (2018). Organizational Learning and Green Innovation: Does Environmental Proactivity Matter? Sustainability, 10(10), 3737. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10103737

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Publication Title

Sustainability

DOI

10.3390/su10103737