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Handling customer green pressures: the mediating role of process innovation among export-oriented manufacturing industries

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Ying YangORCiD

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This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2023.

For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.


Abstract

Meeting customers’ green requirements for manufacturing firms has been a continuing debate but with mixed results. Based on the innovation diffusion theory, this study argues that process innovation can be an important conduit to absorb customers’ green pressures to enhance sustainable measures. The empirical results from 680 manufacturers in ten different countries, confirmed the relationship between the customer green pressures and sustainability performance. Initially, manufacturers might find themselves less motivated in investing environmental initiatives due to limited business performance improvements, however, process innovation can fully absorb external pressures and enhance business measures such as growth and market share. Furthermore, as firms engage more in exports, environmental customer pressures intensify and in turn influence process innovation. Export developments led to proactive approach in handling customer green pressures and leading to better sustainable measures, mainly in environmental measures, but not financial performance. The findings highlight the importance of process innovation in sustainability development and offer managerial guidelines for export-oriented industries in aligning customer environmental demands to accommodate resources for development of sustainable strategies.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Nguyen H, Onofrei G, Yang Y, Hiep P C, Wiengarten F, Nkhoma M

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Business Strategy and the Environment

Year: 2023

Volume: 32

Issue: 4

Pages: 2312-2326

Print publication date: 18/05/2023

Online publication date: 02/09/2022

Acceptance date: 18/08/2022

Date deposited: 18/08/2022

ISSN (print): 0964-4733

ISSN (electronic): 1099-0836

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Ltd

URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.3250

DOI: 10.1002/bse.3250

ePrints DOI: 10.57711/czrh-3097


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