Business Strategy and The Environment最新文献

This study examines the relationship between partial privatisation (i.e., state ownership reduction) and green innovation in China. Employing a large dataset of 36,072 firm-year observations between 2005 and 2022, we document a positively significant association between partial privatisation and green innovation, suggesting that privatisation promotes green innovation in Chinese firms. Further analyses shows that the relationship is stronger for firms in environmentally sensitive industries and those located in more developed regions. Our main finding is robust to the alternative measurement of variables and endogeneity concerns using the propensity score matching (PSM), firm-fixed effects and the system generalised method of moments (GMM) approach. Finally, we document that green innovation in privatised firms yields superior performance. Our findings highlight the significant contribution of privatisation in the quest for low-carbon emissions in China by promoting green innovation.

Sustainability labels convey information about different product attributes, such as its environmental impact, lifespan or ethical performance. The labelling can be either positive (only identifying the most sustainable products available on the market), negative (only identifying the least sustainable products available on the market) or graded (comparing the sustainable performance of a product with that of all other products on the market). We assess the relative performance of these three labelling approaches in terms of influencing product choices. A nationally representative sample of 1243 consumers from Germany, Spain and the Czech Republic participated in an incentive-compatible online discrete choice experiment with random allocation to different labelling approaches. Compared with positive and negative labels, graded labels were most effective in guiding consumers towards more sustainable product choices. These findings support policy interventions that convey product sustainability with graded labels.

Recently, the new industrial paradigm of circular economy (CE) has acquired increasing attention. In a CE, the value of materials is preserved by keeping them for as long as possible in the economic system, overcoming the “traditional” linear model (take-waste-disposal). Despite its benefits in terms of sustainability, there are still numerous barriers to the implementation of CE principles for companies, and specifically, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) find it difficult to integrate CE principles within their business models due to a shortage of resources. Hence, a qualitative multiple-case study involving four Italian companies implementing CE principles is conducted. The findings contribute to the development of CE principles in SMEs by proposing good practices, such as encouraging SMEs to engage in research projects to secure initial investments, expanding suppliers' networks to reduce the risk of limited by-product availability, and implementing organizational training on CE to enhance employees' awareness and skills.

This paper aims to shed light on the determinants of sustainable products' purchase intention, with a focus on sustainable beer. Specifically, three determinants related to the theory of planned behavior (i.e., perceived consumer effectiveness, social influence, and environmental concern) and two determinants related to the perceived value (i.e., green perceived utility and perceived quality) have been investigated. Five categories of environmentally sustainable beer have been considered: three referred to the types of ingredients (organic, local, and Italian) and two to the type of packaging (recycled and biodegradable). Furthermore, the effect of gender has been investigated for all the five above-mentioned sustainable solutions. A survey has been conducted on 790 Italian consumers and structural equation modeling (SEM) has been employed for hypothesis testing. Results show that perceived quality, green perceived utility, and environmental concern influence the purchase intention of sustainable beer, regardless of the specific type of sustainable solution. Further, results highlight that gender does moderate the relationship between perceived quality and purchase intention only for two types of sustainable solutions (local ingredients and recycled packaging). Several implications for scholars, companies, and policymakers are drawn from this study.

Sustainable and resilient cold chains (CC) are the backbone of several industries, ensuring the seamless transport and storage of temperature-sensitive products ranging from fresh produce and pharmaceuticals to life-saving vaccines. Particularly in times of disruptions, such as natural disasters or global health crises, the sustainability and resilience of CCs become even more crucial, highlighting the urgent need for research, innovation, and strategic planning in this domain. This study conducted a systematic review of the sustainable and resilient CC research literature. A total of 143 high-quality articles were shortlisted from the Web-of-Science (WoS) database for in-depth content analysis. This review clarifies the existing results and highlights the trending themes and persistent gaps in research pertaining to CC in a business context and at a strategic level. It covers notably disruptions and related impacts, the relationship between sustainability and resilience in CC, decision tools for sustainable and resilient CC, CC sustainability and resilience performance areas and measurement metrics, data-driven digital transformation for sustainable and resilient CC, and strategies for developing sustainable and resilient CC strategies. The results reveal that research on sustainable and resilient CC is growing; however, the field remains dominated by research methods that need to establish causality formally. Furthermore, the research area is fragmented into several subareas, and more conceptual and theoretical work is needed to advance the theoretical foundation of the domain. Finally, a proposed research agenda suggests 17 future avenues for improving the contribution to sustainable and resilient CC research.

Sustainable development is crucial to ports due to the interconnection between port activities, the economy, and the environment. This study aims to explore how port digitalization initiatives played the role of promoting sustainable development. To this purpose, the author/authors adopted a mixed methods approach using as database the World Ports Sustainability Program, which features 74 port digitalization initiatives. The first step focused on a quantitative analysis of the distribution of said initiatives in terms of sustainable development goals, followed by a thematic analysis to explore their contribution. The findings indicate that more than 72% of ports addressed sustainable development goals 8, 9, 13, and 17. Digitalization initiatives in ports have mainly focused on improving their infrastructure and operational performance, enabling them to address climate change challenges. This work also recognized the role that partnerships can play in achieving this goal.

Social and environmental challenges are forcing organizations to develop sustainable business models (SBMs). Literature on SBMs has identified the importance of stakeholders and collaboration. Collaboration and positions of stakeholders within the value-chain opens the discussion about organizational boundaries and their role in enhancing or hindering sustainable business model innovation. Through a literature review, this study analyzes 53 papers at the intersection of SBMs and boundaries to clarify how SBMs change organizational boundaries, and how these boundaries affect the sustainability values of organizations. We aim to identify key stakeholders, who hold negotiation power at organizational boundaries. The paper identifies important managerial questions that may assist organizations in the process of unpacking sustainable value and broaden their scope of key stakeholders. Finally, we formulate future research areas to advance research at the intersection of SBMs and organizational boundaries.

According to the research on fisheries, there are two main trade-offs between these sustainability pillars. First, a fisheries industry's developing ecological health diminishes economic gains for fishermen. Second, individual fishermen's financial success undercuts fisheries communities' social goals. This paper aims to investigate the dynamic impact of global competitiveness on the sustainability of the fisheries industry in 27 European countries by considering the production of fisheries, enabling environments, ecosystems for innovation, market size, human capital, and economic growth between 1990 and 2022. At higher quantiles, the findings showed a strong positive association between enabling environment and fisheries sustainability by adopting MMQR with fixed effects, the new method of moments quantile regression. Additionally, in EU27 nations, the impact of human capital was positive and substantial from the first to ninth quantiles. Notably, the findings show that the EU14 developed nations have a greater level of development than the EU13 underdeveloped countries, which considerably benefits fisheries sustainability. Market size and economic growth were also found to condense fisheries sustainability in EU14 developed and EU13 developing countries, supporting the growth hypothesis for fisheries-producing countries. Innovation ecosystem was found to increase fisheries sustainability across all quantiles. Notably, the findings show that the significant beneficial impact of the innovation ecosystem, market size, and economic development on the sustainability of fisheries is more significant in the emerging nations of the EU13 than in the developed countries of the EU14. With effective and environmentally friendly technology, policymakers may boost market competitiveness in the EU14 and EU13 countries and advance sustainable development objectives.

Managerial cognition research is becoming more prevalent in the corporate sustainability literature, providing insights as to how functioning of the mind impacts decision-making. As we witness catastrophic decline of the planet's natural capital, entering the sixth wave of mass extinction, this study investigates decision-making related to natural resource consumption through interviews with 32 decision-makers in the construction/infrastructure and manufacturing industries. Drawing on mindset theory and interview data, we develop the concept of an operational mindset and a societal mindset. The study also identifies the occurrence of individuals switching between operational and societal mindsets when asked to consider the sustainability of key natural resources for the interviewees' organisations. While similarities exist with the prominent business case and paradoxical cognitive frames concept, a number of differences are identified by drawing on the foundations of mindset theory and extensive empirical research from its application in other business disciplines.

Drawing from the resource-based view (RBV), we examine the effect of environmental innovation on mergers and acquisitions (M&As) announcement returns. Using an international sample of M&As for the period of 2003–2021 and an event study methodology, we document that acquirers with higher environmental innovation—innovative acquirers—earn average deal announcement abnormal returns that are 0.10–0.50 percentage points higher than those earned by their non-innovative counterparts. These results are consistent across three important forms of environmental innovation (i.e., product, process, and organizational innovation) and are partly explained by the transfer of environmental innovation from the acquirer to the target. We further find that environmentally innovative acquirers are more likely to engage in majority control and cross-border acquisitions, thus emphasizing the transfer effect. Overall, we contribute to RBV by providing evidence that environmental innovation is a distinctive resource or dynamic capability that is transferable from bidders to targets in the takeover market.