This article explores the impact of green manufacturing practices, disentangled in green activities, green investments, and the type of product made, on the economic performance of firms. Using ...survey data collected by European Commission from European small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), we adopt the self‐determination theory to investigate the extent to which the number of green activities, green investments, and type of product made affects a firm's economic performance. We argue that consumers are affected by firms' green manufacturing practices in response to the pressing environmental issues affecting our era. Our results reveal that while the number of green activities has a positive effect on economic performance, the amount of green manufacturing investments has an inverted U‐shaped relationship to economic performance and that this effect is positively moderated if a company also sells non‐green products. Our study contributes to the literature on green manufacturing by dissecting the effect of green manufacturing practices on a company's economic performance. Our findings also provide managers with advice on the right balance of green practices that most benefit their companies.
Growing concern about the sustainability of the natural environment is rapidly transforming the competitive landscape and forcing companies to explore the costs and benefits of “greening” their ...marketing mix. We develop and test a theoretical model that predicts (1) the role of green marketing programs in influencing firm performance, (2) the impact of slack resources and top management risk aversion on the deployment of such programs, and (3) the conditioning effects that underpin these relationships. Our analyses show that green marketing programs are being implemented by firms, and we find evidence of significant performance payoffs. Specifically the results indicate that green product and distribution programs positively affect firms’ product-market performance, while green pricing and promotion practices are directly positively related to firms’ return on assets. In addition, industry-level environmental reputation moderates the links between green marketing program components and firms’ product-market and financial performance. Finally, we find that slack resources and top management risk aversion are independently conducive to the adoption of green marketing programs—but operate as substitutes for each other.
•Economic incentive with environmental purpose can increase internalized motivation.•Germans are intrinsically motivated to recycle while Chinese are at the introjection stage.•Both internalized and ...external motivations influence recycling in the USA.•Restrictive incentives do not lower autonomy perception in Germany and China.
Previous research reported conflicting results on the effectiveness of economic incentives versus green appeals for promoting pro-environmental behavior and neglected the possibility of combining both as well as country differences. Through online experiments in Germany, the USA and China, we tested a monetary reward for recycling that is only redeemable for eco-friendly products – a “green reward” – in comparison to a standard reward (redeemable for any product) and a green appeal (highlighting environmental impact). In China, green rewards significantly increased recycling intentions via introjected motivation. In the USA, rewards improved intentions mainly via extrinsic motivation. In Germany, green appeals appeared to be the best strategy. Extrinsic rewards are expected to reduce perceived autonomy support, but only did so in the USA. Differences between countries are identified with regard to “crowding-out” of internalized motivation. It appears that under some conditions an environmental purpose can neutralize negative effects of extrinsic incentives.
The paper explores the influence of greenwash on green trust and discusses the mediation roles of green consumer confusion and green perceived risk. The research object of this study focuses on ...Taiwanese consumers who have the purchase experience of information and electronics products in Taiwan. This research employs an empirical study by means of the structural equation modeling. The results show that greenwash is negatively related to green trust. Therefore, this study suggests that companies must reduce their greenwash behaviors to enhance their consumers' green trust. In addition, this study finds out that green consumer confusion and green perceived risk mediate the negative relationship between greenwash and green trust. The results also demonstrate that greenwash is positively associated with green consumer confusion and green perceived risk which would negatively affect green trust. It means that greenwash does not only negatively affect green trust directly but also negatively influence it via green consumer confusion and green perceived risk indirectly. Hence, if companies would like to reduce the negative relationship between greenwash and green trust, they need to decrease their consumers' green consumer confusion and green perceived risk.
Young consumers represent a powerful engine in the development of environmentally conscious population as well as a promising market for green products. Marketers and organizations are therefore ...increasingly developing strategic marketing campaigns and environmental education programmes that target the young consumer segment. This study aims to examine a number of rational, moral, emotional and self-identity factors that may facilitate or impede green purchase behaviour among young consumers in an emerging market, Vietnam. A paper-based survey was employed to collect data from university students, which yielded an effective sample of 289 respondents. Multivariate statistics revealed that most factors (i.e. knowledge, attitudes, personal norms, self-identity and perceived barriers) significantly affected consumer purchase of energy efficient appliances, except for subjective social norms and warm glow. From these findings, implications for marketers, policy-makers and other stakeholders engaged in promoting green products are discussed.
Building on the resource-based view, we develop a model of drivers and outcomes of environmentally friendly marketing strategies in the Greek hotel sector. Data collected from 152 hotels reveal that ...possessing sufficient physical and financial resources is instrumental in achieving effective green marketing strategies. In addition, shared vision and technology sensing/response capabilities help develop a sound environmentally friendly marketing strategy. In turn, the adoption of such a strategy is conducive to obtaining competitive advantage, which subsequently increases the potential to achieve superior market and financial performance. Furthermore, the study finds that the effect of environmental marketing strategy on competitive advantage is stronger in the case of intense competitive situations, while market dynamism has no moderating effect on this association. Several implications can be drawn from the study findings for both corporate and public policy makers and interesting directions for future research are provided.
► We examine the drivers and outcomes of environmental marketing strategies. ► We build on the resource-based view of the firm and focus on hotels in Greece. ► We use a survey to collect data and structural equation modeling for analysis. ► Certain resources and capabilities are instrumental for green marketing strategies. ► In turn, such strategies lead to competitive advantages and superior performance.
Although the importance of external involvement has been recognized, under what conditions it is more effective is still unclear. To address this research gap, this study explores the moderating ...roles of three dimensions of environmental uncertainty on the relationship between external involvement and green product innovation based on contingency theory and organizational information processing theory. We examine the research hypotheses employing survey data collected from 198 Chinese manufacturing firms and using hierarchical moderated regression analyses. The results indicate that both customer involvement and supplier involvement have positive effects on green product innovation. Technological uncertainty strengthens the effects of customer involvement and supplier involvement on green product innovation. However, demand uncertainty fails to moderate the relationship between customer involvement and green product innovation, and supply uncertainty fails to moderate the relationship between supplier involvement and green product innovation. This study provides novel and fruitful research avenues for stakeholder involvement and suggests future directions.
Consumers' reference behaviors are largely ignored in previous research on green product design. This study investigates a green-product design problem in a two-echelon supply chain by considering ...consumers' reference behaviors, where the reference point is associated with a functional product that has a utility-based reference form. Tax regulation and the environmental awareness of consumers are also considered in investigating their effects on the green-product design and pricing strategies. Analytical results show that consumers' reference behaviors significantly influence the green-product design and pricing decisions. When faced with consumers who have different recognition levels of reference, the product design and pricing strategies should be adjusted. Tax regulation and consumer green awareness also affect the firms' decisions. Tax regulation can encourage firms to increase the greenness degree of their product only when the tax level or the green development cost is at a low level, while consumer green awareness always plays a positive role in green design. By comparing the results between different supply chain structures, we find that the retailer-led supply chain outperforms the manufacturer-led supply chain in environmental performance improvements. The best environmental performance is achieved when the supply chain is coordinated.
•We consider consumers' reference behaviors in green product design.•We introduce a new utility-based reference form.•Retailer-led supply chain outperforms the manufacturer-lead case.•The best environmental performance is achieved when supply chain is coordinated.
This research compares consumer response to traditional green advertising appeals to that of less conventional, "green demarketing" (GD) appeals-messages by for-profit companies encouraging reduced ...category consumption for the sake of the environment. Rather than encouraging greener consumption, modern environmentalism calls for decreased consumption overall, a trend reflected in recent advertising campaigns (e.g., Patagonia's "Don't Buy This Jacket"). Despite its potential impact and unconventionality, research on GD in general is sparse, and no empirical research has examined consumer response to GD appeals relative to traditional green appeals. In three experiments, we find that, in the context of product advertising, consumers' attitudes for green ads are more favorable than those for GD ads, mediated by greater inferences of genuine environmental concern. However, we find the reverse pattern in the context of institutional ads. Further, an "anti-consumption amplifier" message embedded in the ad-espousing the potential harm of overconsumption-further boosts favorable consumer attitudes for the GD institutional ad relative to its traditional green counterpart. Importantly, we assess all effects while controlling for consumers' individual levels of green consumerism, such that implications may be applied more generally rather than to a specific segment of green consumers.
Despite widespread pro-green attitudes, consumers frequently purchase non-green alternatives. One possible explanation for this value–action gap is the tradeoffs that green products often force on ...their users: higher prices, lower quality, and/or reduced performance. The current study uses conjoint analysis to uncover the attribute preferences of car and TV buyers when green attributes are negatively correlated with conventional attributes. These attribute preferences are then used to predict choice among sets of green and less green alternatives currently sold in the marketplace. Strong preferences for green products are found when tradeoffs are not apparent, but preference shifts significantly to less green compromise alternatives when the actual attribute tradeoffs are considered. Although general preference is reduced by tradeoffs, a green product offering some compensatory advantage on a conventional attribute does attract a broader spectrum of consumers, while only “dark green” consumers are willing to pay the price to go green when the product offers few compensatory qualities. In all cases, however, predicted buyers of the greenest technologies offset some of their environmental benefits by choosing more energy-thirsty specifications on negatively correlated conventional attributes. Managerial and public policy implications of the findings are then discussed.
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