Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility, Green Intellectual Capital, and Green Innovation on Competitive Advantage: Building Contingency Model

Abstract

The concept of green intellectual capital has gained substantial popularity in context of pressures from competition, environmental forces, and mounting stakeholders’ expectations for environment protection. Scholars have, investigated about the antecedents and consequences of green intellectual capital. However, those investigations look inexhaustive in terms of the research frameworks and contexts employed therein. Based on the systematic literature review, this paper builds a better model involving, both, antecedents and consequences of green intellectual capital. The model proposes that corporate social responsibility is a factor leading to green intellectual capital. Additionally, green intellectual capital leads to green innovation resulting in competitive advantage for firms. Importantly, the model acknowledges contingency theory and suggests that the relationship between corporate social responsibility and green innovation could be moderated by the extent to which a firm is visible to general public for its activities as well as the extent to which the firm is transparent.