Translating green strategic intent into green process innovation performance: the role of green intellectual capital
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JIC-08-2020-0277 |
| Published date | 28 May 2021 |
| Date | 28 May 2021 |
| Pages | 43-67 |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Knowledge management,HR & organizational behaviour,Organizational structure/dynamics,Accounting & finance,Accounting/accountancy,Behavioural accounting |
| Author | Jirapol Jirakraisiri,Yuosre F. Badir,Björn Frank |
Translating green strategic intent
into green process innovation
performance: the role of green
intellectual capital
Jirapol Jirakraisiri and Yuosre F. Badir
School of Management, Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand, and
Bj€
orn Frank
Faculty of Commerce, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
Abstract
Purpose –Many firms struggle to implement strategies that can successfully enhance the environmental
sustainability of their processes. Drawing on the theories of green intellectual capital and complementary
assets, this study develops a model describing the mechanism whereby firms can translate a green (i.e.,
environmental) strategy into a superior green process innovation performance (GPIP).
Design/methodology/approach –Regression analysis of multi-source survey data collected from 514
managers at 257 firms (257 top management members and 257 safety or environmental managers) was used to
test the hypotheses.
Findings –A firm’s green strategic intent has positive effects on the three aspects of green intellectual capital
(i.e., human, organizational and relational capital). In turn, these three aspects have positive effects on GPIP.
Moreover, green organizational capital positively moderates the effect of green relational capital on GPIP,
whereas it negatively moderates the effect of human capital on GPIP.
Research limitations/implications –In order to implement a green strategy successfully, especially in
polluted industries such as the chemical industry, managers need to develop not only the firm’s tangible
resources but also its intangible resources. The more they invest in green organizational capital, the higher the
level of GPIP that can be achieved. On average, a firm’s green human capital is more important than
its organizational and relational capital. Moreover, its organizational capital helps capture the benefits of its
relational capital, but it impairs the creativity of its human capital.
Originality/value –The authors contribute to the literature on green strategy implementation by suggesting
that green intellectual capital plays a mediating role in the relationship between a firm’s green strategic intent
and GPIP.
Keywords Green strategy implementation, Green strategic intent, Green intellectual capital, Green process
innovation performance
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
In order to face the increasing pressure from stakeholders and reduce any negative impact on
the natural environment (Herremans et al., 2016;Lee and Min, 2015), firms adopt green
strategies (Tsai and Liao, 2017) that aim at improving their green (i.e., environmental)
performance (Shu et al., 2016;Song and Yu, 2018) mainly through green innovation
(Weng et al., 2015). Firms that succeed in implementing green strategies can achieve a
The role of
green
intellectual
capital
43
© Jirapol Jirakraisiri, Yuosre F. Badir and Bj€
orn Frank. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited.
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may
reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-
commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of
this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
The authors extend their gratitude to two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.
Bj€
orn Frank acknowledges financial support from JSPS KAKENHI (grant no. 20H01554).
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/1469-1930.htm
Received 14 August 2020
Revised 12 November 2020
21 February 2021
Accepted 23 March 2021
Journal of Intellectual Capital
Vol. 22 No. 7, 2021
pp. 43-67
Emerald Publishing Limited
1469-1930
DOI 10.1108/JIC-08-2020-0277
sustainable competitive advantage (Chen et al., 2006;Leonidou et al., 2017), strengthen their
core competence (Chen, 2008a), enhance their green image (Chen, 2008a), take advantage of
new market opportunities (Babiak and Trendafilova, 2011;Berrone and Gomez-Mejia, 2009)
and improve their financial performance (Gallego-
Alvarez et al., 2015;Iwata and Okada,
2011). Moreover, they can enhance their customers’satisfaction, value perceptions and
purchase intentions (Frank, 2018,2021;Herbas Torrico et al., 2018). Therefore, the successful
implementation of green strategies has become an important goal for many firms.
A review of the literature on green strategy reveals the following gaps. First, while there
has been a considerable amount of research on the drivers (Arag
on-Correa et al., 2008;Huang
et al., 2016) and consequences (Chen et al., 2006;Leonidou et al., 2017) of green strategies, little
attention has been given to the strategy implementation phase (Verrier et al., 2016;Zhang
et al., 2011). While the existing limited studies suggest that firms develop, or otherwise
acquire, the necessary tangible and intangible resources to implement their stated strategy
(Kamasak, 2017), it remains unclear how firms can develop and use intangible resources, such
as intellectual capital, to implement a green strategy (Cheng and Shiu, 2012;Kunapatarawong
and Mart
ınez-Ros, 2016). L
opez-Gamero et al. (2011) state that only a few studies have
focused on green strategy implementation, which limits our understanding of its mechanism.
Consequently, the mechanism underlying successful implementation of a green strategy
requires further consideration (Morgan et al., 2009). The lack of clear understanding of green
strategy implementation may explain, at least partially, why many firms struggle to
operationalize their green strategy into effective green innovation and, consequently, fail to
improve their overall green performance (Leonidou et al., 2017;Matus et al., 2012). Although
many firms may have similar green strategies, the differences in implementation may
possibly provide the answer to why some firms outperform others with regard to green
performance (Huang and Li, 2018;King and Lenox, 2001).
Second, most of the literature focuses on green product innovation, rather than on green
processinnovation(Dangelico et al., 2013;Tariq et al., 2019), despitethe latter’ssig nificanti mpact
on the environmental and economic performance of a particu lar firm (Famiyehet al.,2018).Green
process innovation helps a firm to reduce waste, consume less energy and produce less pollution.
Therefore, this can significantly improve a firm’sgreenperformance(Albort-Morant et al.,2016;
Song andYu, 2018). However,knowledge regardinggreen productinnovation cannotbe simply
extrapolated to cover green process innovation, because these two distinct types of innovation
call for different organizational skills, resources and characteristics (Damanpour and
Gopalakrishnan, 2001), which involve different areas and activities within a firm and trigger
different performance outcomes (Albort-Morant et al., 2018;Dost and Badir, 2019).
Therefore, the goal of this article is to extend our understanding of the mechanism
through which a firm’s green strategy is translated into a superior level of green process
innovation performance (GPIP). Firms develop and deploy resources in a manner that is
consistent with their strategic direction (Choi and Phan, 2014;Reyes-Rodr
ıguez et al., 2016)as
these resources, either independently or through their interrelationships, influence
innovation performance (Dost et al., 2016;Subramaniam and Youndt, 2005). Thus, we
draw on a perspective highlighting the role of firms’resources (Barney et al., 2001;Hart, 1995),
namely their green intellectual capital and complementary assets, which allow us to examine
the mechanism underlying the implementation of their green strategy.
Research suggests that the ability of firms to implement strategy and innovate is closely
tied to their intellectual capital, that is, th e ability to utilize knowledge resources
(Subramaniam and Youndt, 2005). Firms adopt different approaches to accumulate and
utilize their knowledge, and these approaches manifest themselves as the distinct aspects of
intellectual capital –namely, human, organizational and relational capital (Davenport and
Prusak, 1998;Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). Similarly, due to the popularity of
environmentalism (Chang and Chen, 2012), scholars propose the concept of green
JIC
22,7
44
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