Institutional investor ESG activism and green supply chain management performance: Exploring contingent roles of technological interdependences in different digital intelligence contexts

Abstract

While scholars have largely confirmed that target firms respond proactively to institutional investor ESG activism, a wide range of studies pay little attention to green responses beyond organizational boundaries. Based on a dataset comprising 8557 firm-year observations of Chinese publicly listed manufacturing firms from 2012 to 2021, we find that institutional investor ESG activism also prompts firms to improve green supply chain management performance. In industries with a higher level of technological integration, firms are more likely to enhance green supply chain management performance at the ESG requests of institutional investors. Firms with greater technological influence are also more inclined to adopt such a collaborative-based green response. Both the moderating effects of technological integration and technological influence are more pronounced for firms equipped with digital intelligence. Our findings provide novel implications for firms seeking to address shareholder environmental concerns through green supply chain management in the context of digital intelligence.