Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis on the Adoption of Environmental Practices: Exploring Technological- and Human-Resource-Based Contributions

Lucía Muñoz-Pascual, Carla Curado and Jesús Galende
Additional contact information
Lucía Muñoz-Pascual: Departamento de Administración y Economía de la Empresa, Facultad de Economía y Empresa, Instituto Multidisciplinar de Empresa (IME), Campus Miguel de Unamuno s/n, Universidad de Salamanca, Edificio FES, 37007 Salamanca, Spain
Carla Curado: Advance/CSG ISEG, University of Lisbon, Rua do Quelhas, 6, 1200-781 Lisbon, Portugal
Jesús Galende: Departamento de Administración y Economía de la Empresa, Facultad de Economía y Empresa, Instituto Multidisciplinar de Empresa (IME), Campus Miguel de Unamuno s/n, Universidad de Salamanca, Edificio FES, 37007 Salamanca, Spain

Mathematics, 2021, vol. 9, issue 13, 1-21

Abstract: Our main objective was to analyze which paths can lead to the adoption of environmental practices (PRAC) in firms, for which we developed three original alternative research models. Model 1 involves five sources for the adoption of environmental practices: human resource costs, organizational learning capability, firm size, manager educational level and manager experience. Model 2 adopts five sources for PRAC: human resource costs, information technology support, firm size, manager educational level and manager experience. Finally, Model 3 adopts six sources for PRAC: human resource costs, organizational learning capability, information technology support, firm size, manager educational level and manager experience. Therefore, Model 1 uses the organizational learning capability for PRAC, Model 2 uses the information technology support for PRAC and Model 3 uses both organizational learning capability and information technology support for PRAC. We used a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis on 349 small- and medium-sized Portuguese firms in twelve industrial sectors. The results show that organizational learning capability (OLC) and information technology support (ITS) are important sources for the development of PRAC. In this line, the three research models show that there are different pathways that lead to PRAC. These research models also show pathways that lead to the absence of PRAC. Therefore, the qualitative findings show the relevancy of OLC and ITS to PRAC. In addition, our findings indicate that, by focusing on variables such as OLC, a firm can find more paths that lead to PRAC. Additionally, with the combination of OLC and ITS, it must be taken into account that only developing ITS without OLC is riskier when obtaining PRAC.

Keywords: fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis; adoption of environmental practices; human resource costs; organizational learning capability; information technology support; size; education level; experience (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/9/13/1553/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/9/13/1553/ (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:jmathe:v:9:y:2021:i:13:p:1553-:d:587042

Access Statistics for this article

Mathematics is currently edited by Ms. Emma He

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