How does environmental cooperation with customers affect financial performance? A motivation-opportunity-ability perspective

ABSTRACT

With the increase in customisation, environmental cooperation with customers (ECC) has become essential for firms to meet the green requirements of customers. Drawing on motivation-opportunity-ability (MOA) theory, this study postulates that ECC provides an opportunity to improve financial performance, and the extent to which this opportunity is realized depends on firms’ green motivation and information technology competency. Based on data from 136 firms in China, we employ the ordinary least squares regression analysis to test the proposed hypotheses. The results show that ECC is positively related to financial performance. Further, green motivation strengthens the positive impact of ECC on financial performance. Moreover, information technology competency strengthens the positive influence of green motivation on the relationship between ECC and financial performance. Finally, we discuss the implications for theory and practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental cooperation with customers
• financial performance
• green motivation
• information technology competency
• motivation-opportunity-ability theory

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Ming K. Lim, regional editor and anonymous reviewers for their valuable and constructive comments and guidance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The datasets for this article are not publicly available because of the privacy. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to the corresponding author Jinliang Chen [[email protected]].

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China [grant number 19BGL096].