How Managers’ Green Transformational Leadership Affects a Firm’s Environmental Strategy, Green Innovation, and Performance: The Moderating Impact of Differentiation Strategy

Burcu Özgül () and Cemal Zehir
Additional contact information
Burcu Özgül: Department Head International Trade and Business, Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences, Istanbul Topkapi University, Istanbul 34087, Turkey
Cemal Zehir: Department of Business Administration, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul 34220, Turkey

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 4, 1-20

Abstract: No prior literature has investigated the effect of managers’ green transformational leadership (GTL) on financial performance (FP). The current study introduces an original research framework with the aim of filling in this gap. This study introduces a completer analytical framework by considering the direct impacts of managers’ GTL on FP and the indirect impacts of managers’ GTL under the joint action of corporate environmental strategy (CES), green product innovation (GPT), and green process innovation (GPI). Furthermore, based on the question of how enterprises can earn profit from GPT, analyzing the moderator impact of differentiation strategy on the relationship between GPT and FP is also within the context of the present study. The data collected from 315 firms with the ISO 14001 certificate in the First and Second 500 Industrial Enterprises List of Turkey in 2018 were tested in the SmartPLS 3 analysis program. The empirical evidence shows that managers’ GTL affects FP both directly and indirectly through CES and GPI. However, it is concluded that GPT does not have a direct positive impact on FP. Considering GPT and differentiation strategy jointly, it is observed that its relationship with FP is positive and significant.

Keywords: green transformational leadership; corporate environmental strategy; green innovation; differentiation strategy; financial performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3597/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3597/ (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:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:4:p:3597-:d:1069748

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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