Abstract This paper seeks to shed light on the relationship between firm digitalization and the likelihood of launching sustainable innovations (social and environmental, social only, and environmental only), for which the extant research has provided a paucity of evidence. In detail, the role of digitalization is considered in terms of (i) the specific effect of a given digital technology (DT)—among artificial intelligence, cloud computing, robotics, smart devices, big data analytics, high speed infrastructure, and blockchain—and (ii) the effect of the concurrent adoption of multiple DTs (deg ..read more

Abstract The circular economy (CE) is specifically transforming the linear food supply chains (FSCs), which attracted a lot of interest from practitioners and researchers in order to address the global difficulties facing the FSCs today. However, there has not been much discussion of implementing CE activities in literature, especially in the FSCs. The purpose of this study is to identify the barriers for implementing CE in the FSC. Barriers are identified from past academic literature and are finalized based on the fuzzy-Delphi method. Nine experts provided their opinions to develop the conte ..read more

Abstract Increasingly, companies are embracing the green-lean-six sigma (GLSS) approach to managing their environmental impacts. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of studies that examined the underlying motivations behind GLSS deployment in manufacturing organizations. Accordingly, this study investigates the GLSS motivators in a developed and developing economy context through multiple case studies in which semi-structured interviews are conducted with senior corporate managers in the flexible packaging manufacturing industry. Drawing on the natural resource-based view (NRBV) and institutional ..read more

Abstract Using panel data from 37 countries from 1990 to 2019 and applying a quantile regression approach with panel fixed effects, we investigate the impact of national Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance on green innovation and how this impact varies across different green innovation capacity distributions. The research conclusions are as follows. (1) National ESG performance improvement significantly promotes green innovation. (2) The improvement of environmental performance and governance performance significantly promotes green innovation, but in countries with weak gr ..read more

Abstract The energy sector plays a crucial role in facilitating the low-carbon energy transition. However, in the absence of appropriate environmental regulation, managerial opportunistic behavior in energy firms can manipulate ethical investor perceptions and hinder the real transition process towards clean energy. Using Chinese listed energy firms as the research setting, this paper examines the impact of investor attention on energy firms' earnings management practices. In both clean and traditional energy firms, the results show a significant U-shaped association between investor attention ..read more

Abstract Drawing from research on strategic management and environmental psychology, this study investigates the role of independent directors' and CEOs' values in promoting sustainable development. We propose that their values may interactively shape directors' focus on environmental sustainability. We test our propositions with survey data from 176 directors and matching CEOs. Our results confirm that there is a significant positive relationship between directors' biospheric values and their environmental sustainability focus, which is further amplified by CEO egoistic values. In contrast to ..read more

Abstract This paper introduces a moderated-mediation model to investigate the relationship between green innovation, as measured by green patent stocks, and firms' stock market value, as measured by Tobin's Q. Using longitudinal data drawn from 351 heavily polluting firms in China's A-share market from 2007 to 2018, we find that green innovation is likely to affect firms' stock market value positively. A 1% increase in the green innovation over assets index will enhance by 0.18% the Tobin's Q at the firm level. Environmental compliance costs significantly mediate the green innovation-firms' st ..read more

Abstract In the oil and gas industry, adopting policies that can reduce the negative environmental effect is vital. Environmentally Sustainable Supply Chain Management (ESSCM) is an approach to carrying out Supply Chain Management (SCM) in an eco-friendly manner and according to environmental requirements. There are different environmental policies that companies can apply based on their resource availability. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the impact of hard dimensions on Environmentally Adaptive (EA) and Mitigated Adverse Eco-Effect (MAE) policies in the oil and gas industry. To rank ..read more

Abstract Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors have become increasingly important to employees and companies alike. It is important to integrate ESG considerations into labor investment decisions. We examine the impact of ESG performance on firms' labor investment efficiency. Using data from A-share listed firms from 2015 to 2020, we find that ESG performance improves labor investment efficiency. Such positive effect is robust after using alternative measures for labor investment efficiency and ESG performance, alternative regression specifications, and a bunch of endogeneity tes ..read more

Abstract This study builds on the natural resource-based view to propose a mediation moderation framework by exploring the influence of green intellectual capital (GIC) on green business strategy through the mediating and moderating impact of green absorptive capacity (GAC) and corporate environmental ethics (CEE), respectively. The data were collected from 268 participants from large manufacturing industries in Pakistan to test the suggested model and analyzed using structural equation modeling (variance-based). The findings show that GIC positively influences GAC and green business strategy ..read more