Eco-Efficiency and Private Firms’ Relationships with Heterogeneous Public Stakeholders in China

Jiawen Chen and Linlin Liu
Additional contact information
Jiawen Chen: School of Management, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China
Linlin Liu: School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, China

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 19, 1-18

Abstract: Private firms have been struggling to simultaneously achieve both environmental and economic goals. The concept of eco-efficiency captures the extent to which firms gain competitiveness through environmental management. Based on stakeholder salience theory and organizational learning theory, this study proposes that relationship with public stakeholders can hinder or promote private firms’ eco-efficiency. Our findings showed that firm eco-efficiency is reduced by a relationship with the government but is enhanced by relationships with non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This study also found that the effects on eco-efficiency of a firm’s relationship with public stakeholders are contingent on firm size. The findings of this study shed light on the organizational learning perspective of eco-efficiency and multi-stakeholder management by theoretically and empirically differentiating the effects on firm eco-efficiency of relationships with the government and NGOs.

Keywords: eco-efficiency; stakeholder relationship; stakeholder salience; organizational learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/19/6983/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/19/6983/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:19:p:6983-:d:418492

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().