Green organizational identity and green innovation

Abstract

PurposeThe authors aim to apply an “interpretive context – organizational action – outcome” framework to explore the positive effect of green organizational identity on green innovation performance. Besides, they would like to verify that both environmental commitment and environmental organizational legitimacy mediate between green organizational identity and green innovation performance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors utilize a hybrid research method that includes both questionnaire data and public data to test the hypotheses to satisfy the triangulation in methodology. In addition, structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to perform the empirical research.FindingsThe results show that green organizational identity would positively affect green innovation performance. Moreover, green organizational identity could positively influence green innovation performance indirectly via environmental commitment and environmental organizational legitimacy. Firms should increase their green organizational identity, environmental commitment, and environmental organizational legitimacy to enhance their green innovation performance. Furthermore, the authors find out that green organizational identity, environmental commitment, environmental organizational legitimacy, and green innovation performance of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) are lower than those of large enterprises in Taiwan.Originality/valueThe authors develop a research framework to explore the positive effect of green organizational identity on green innovation and explore the mediation effects of environmental commitment and environmental organizational legitimacy.