Exploring an innovative pivot: How green training can spur corporate sustainability performance

• Published in: Business strategy and the environment Vol. 29; no. 6; pp. 2432 - 2449
• Main Authors: Xie, Xuemei, Zhu, Qiwei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester Wiley Periodicals Inc 01.09.2020
• Subjects: ambidextrous learning; Companies; Corporate learning; corporate sustainability performance; Cost benefit analysis; Environmental accounting; Environmental economics; Green economy; green innovation behaviors; green trainingintroduction; Handedness; Innovations; Learning; Learning theory; Organizational learning; Sustainability; Training
• ISSN: 0964-4733; 1099-0836
• DOI: 10.1002/bse.2512

In general, studies on green innovation practices have primarily taken an innovation view to study the costs and benefits to firms. What has been less examined, however, is how green training spurs the intentions and advantages of green innovation. Thus, this paper explores how and when green training influences the likelihood of firms to achieve sustainability performance by using organizational learning theory. Using a dataset of 231 Chinese manufacturing firms, our work shows that green training is positively correlated to corporate sustainability performance via the indirect effect of green innovation behavior. We also find an increasingly positive indirect effect that is conditional on ambidextrous learning; specifically, this indirect effect is least positive for firms with lower ambidextrous learning capacity but stronger for those firms having higher ambidextrous learning capacity. We hold that the key to spurring corporate sustainability performance through green training lies mainly in advancing firms' green innovation behaviors and persistently enhancing their capacities for ambidextrous learning. Thus, this study offers not only new theoretical insights for understanding the effect of green training on corporate sustainability performance but also practical implications for improving corporate sustainability performance within a green economy context.