Greening Project Management Practices to Achieve Competitive Advantage Though Moderated Mediation

Abstract

This study envisages the impact of green project management (GPM) practices on sustainable competitive advantage through a sequential mediating model of green knowledge acquisition and green exploitative and exploratory innovation. The study also investigates the buffering effect of environmental organizational culture on the linkage between green knowledge acquisition and green exploitative and exploratory innovation. Data was collected from the multi-sector manufacturing enterprises (N = 265) in Pakistan. The analyses were conducted through partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and PROCESS macros in SPSS 25.0. The results suggest that GPM practices are positively related to sustainable competitive advantage. In addition to this direct effect, green knowledge acquisition and green ambidextrous innovation play a significant role in explaining the associations between GPM practices and sustainable competitive advantage. Furthermore, environmental organizational culture strengthens the positive influence of green knowledge acquisition on green exploratory innovation. However, the moderated effect of environmental organizational culture for green knowledge acquisition and green exploitative innovation was not supported. Our findings bring essential insights for the enterprises, policymakers, practitioners, and project managers to promote green project management practices for low-carbon projects to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.