Organizational legitimacy and firm nonmarket strategies as catalysts of alliance green management

Abstract

Numerous studies have previously highlighted the potential challenges in association with implementing green management practices within firms. However, there remains a lack of comprehensive understanding concerning the specific factors that drive firms to adopt alliance green management (AGM). To address the existing gap in knowledge, our research builds upon embeddedness perspective to unravel the underlying dynamics motivating firms to engage in AGM. Drawing on the data of 199 alliance firms in China, our findings demonstrate a positive relation between organizational legitimacy and AGM. We also find that firm nonmarket strategies can (green management within focal firm and corporate political activity) positively influence AGM. Further analyses suggest that environmental scanning enhances the positive relation between organizational legitimacy and AGM. Besides, the results indicate that environmental scanning enhances both the green management within focal firm – AGM linkage and the corporate political activity – AGM linkage. Collectively, our findings substantiate the important roles of organizational legitimacy and firm nonmarket strategies in shaping AGM in an emerging economy.