How does ecological responsibility affect manufacturing firms' environmental and economic performance?

Abstract

Sustainability is emerging as an important approach that manufacturing companies employ to improve their economic profitability and competitive advantage by enhancing environmental performance. Consistent with the contemporary aspects of ecological responsibility, specific forms of coordination such as internal cross-functional coordination in a firm and external supply chain coordination mechanisms mediate the relationship between an environmental sustainability orientation and environmental performance. Despite the importance of coordination, empirical studies investigating the mediating roles of this coordination are relatively scarce. Our theoretical model therefore examines the mediating effects of coordination. The results show that the relationship between an environmental sustainability orientation and environmental performance is mediated by green manufacturing coordination and green supply chain coordination.

Keywords:

• ecological responsibility
• environmental sustainability orientation
• internal green functional coordination
• external supply chain coordination
• environmental performance
• economic performance

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by a grant from the Kyung Hee University in 2012 (KHU-20120487).