Improving the firm's environmental conduct: a source of competitive advantage?

Abstract

It has recently been argued that growing societal pressures for better environmental conduct could induce environmental innovation, thereby entailing lower costs due to increased value and/or more efficient resource allocation. This has led to the claim that improved environmental conduct may lead to strategic advantage and, thus, economic gains at the firm level. In view of the great importance of this claim, the purpose of the present article was to apply resource-based insights in order to develop this reasoning further and provide an empirical test of three hypotheses related to the claim. Our empirical test filled a gap in previous research and offered evidence in support of this claim as well as support for two related hypotheses developed on the basis of the resource-based view.

Keywords:

• Competitive Advantage
• Environmental Conduct
• Resource-BASED View