Abstract
Based on upper echelons, paradox, and social capital theory, this study extends the association of CEO vision articulation and feedback-seeking behavior with firm sustainability by identifying the mediating role of eco-innovation and top management team (TMT) boundary-spanning behavior as a moderator. By analyzing the data of mid-sized to large Chinese firms using hierarchical regression and bootstrapping-based moderated path analysis, we found that product and process eco-innovation mediates the link between CEO vision articulation and firm sustainability while CEO feedback-seeking behavior enhances firm’s sustainability through product eco-innovation only. Finally, conditional indirect effects show the vital role of TMT boundary-spanning behavior in facilitating CEOs to improve the firm’s long-term sustainability through eco-innovation.
Highlights
Around the globe, firms are continuously making efforts to mitigate the environmental impact of their economic activities to deal with public awareness for green products and climate-friendly technology (Kopnina and Blewitt, 2014)
CEO vision articulation was significantly associated with product eco-innovation (r = 0.15, p = 0.005) while CEO feedback-seeking behavior was positively associated with both product (r = 0.11, p = 0.007) and process ecoinnovation (r = 0.29, p = 0.042)
It shows that product eco-innovation partially mediates the association between CEO feedbackseeking behavior and firm sustainability as the effect size was reduced compared to Model 5
Summary
Firms are continuously making efforts to mitigate the environmental impact of their economic activities to deal with public awareness for green products and climate-friendly technology (Kopnina and Blewitt, 2014). Eco-innovation; defined as the development of products and processes that contribute to sustainable development (Rennings, 2000), differs from the conventional innovation process as it improves green performance through environmental externalities and positive R&D spillover (Bossle et al, 2016; Hojnik and Ruzzier, 2016). It acts as a powerful mechanism to remove information asymmetries among market players and facilitates enterprises to comply with stringent environmental regulations, which eventually leads to the firm’s sustainability (Przychodzen and Przychodzen, 2015; Kuo and Smith, 2018; Santos et al, 2019). Researchers have devoted excessive attention to the technological, market, and environmental
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