Green competencies: insights and recommendations from a systematic literature review

Sustaining the future: How green capabilities and digitalization drive sustainability in modern business

In recent years, the unprecedented growth in environmental vulnerabilities has made the firms realize the need for environmental protection. With this, the rapid surge for ecological preservation has made worldwide businesses divert their focus toward greener practices that ensure the firm's financial and environmental performance. This study examines the relationships between green management strategies (green dynamic capabilities, internal green supply chain management and green technology adoption), and organizational outcomes, specifically environmental and financial performance. The data was collected from the 471 employees working in the manufacturing firms. Utilizing the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method via Smart-PLS, our findings show the importance of integrating green practices in supply chain management, dynamic capabilities, and technology adoption to enhance both environmental and financial outcomes under the moderating role of industry dynamism and green knowledge acquisition.

Green Jobs: Bibliometric Review

Among the visible effects as Sustainable Development (SD) transitions from theory into practice, there are Green Jobs (GJs). There are multiple variants in naming this phenomenon in the labor market. Among them are green collars, green employment, and sustainable employment, all indicating a profound inconsistency in the GJ definition. This article aims to identify keyword-specified areas around which the topic of GJs revolves in the scientific literature indexed in the Scopus database. The usage of two methods has achieved this goal. First is the Structured Literature Review (SLR) variation with queries, and it is used to explore the scientific database to determine GJ's definition consistency by the queries syntax. The second method is the search results analysis performed in the Scopus database online to identify the most cited publications and most contributing authors. Then the bibliometric analysis was performed to create bibliometric maps of the most critical keywords in VOSviewer software. The combination of those two approaches allowed this research to indicate the most influential research directions on GJs. The results are presented in graphical forms, and tables with main co-occurring keyword clusters were identified. GJs are a key part of green economy development, where green self-employment and green entrepreneurship play a pivotal role. The presented results can inspire other researchers who are looking for a research gap or describing the state of the art. Politicians and decision-makers can be influenced by the presented contextualization of green job's meaning in the labor market.

Individual change agents for corporate sustainability transformation: a systematic literature review

Purpose

Individual change agents for corporate sustainability can drive the transformation of organizations and foster sustainable development. Current research literature is growing and is published in a wide variety of journals. This systematic literature review provides an overview and synthesis of different understandings of individual change agents for corporate sustainability transformation. It identifies gaps and puts forward propositions to contribute to theoretical development in the field.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper conducts a systematic literature review and thematic content analysis of individual agency in light of corporate sustainability transformation.

Findings

The analysis identifies five research streams, three key dimensions of individual change agency for sustainability (beliefs, actions and competencies) and presents levels of individual agency for transformation. An integrated definition of change agents for sustainability is proposed.

Research limitations/implications

The review concludes with implications to support individuals in fostering sustainability transformations of organizations, markets and societies. The synthesis and propositions help in identifying which dimensions are already and could in future be addressed by individual change agents. While acknowledging the usual limitations of literature reviews, this paper can inspire future empirical research on the effectiveness of individual change agents for sustainability.

Originality/value

By synthesizing different understandings in the literature of individual change agents for sustainability, this article contributes to the theoretical development of individual agency in the areas of understandings, research streams, dimensions and perspectives. It also develops propositions on how individual change agency can effectively contribute to sustainability transformations at individual, organizational and systems levels.

Green supply chain management/green finance: a bibliometric analysis of the last twenty years by using the Scopus database

Mostly, the product manufacturer and activities related to transportation have a greater influence on the supply chain and the environment. Hence, the green investment in water, biodiversity protection, waste treatment, resources, and climate change alleviation help in enhancing industrial production. Thus, for the enhancement of green growth, the industries must adopt green financing by making investments in ecology, climate change, and carbon reduction. Despite having the greatest growth in green supply chain management, still, the implementations of greening the product and processes have not been seen properly in many industries. A bibliometric analysis was conducted through VOS viewer version 1.6.7. of last twenty years (2001-2021). A total of 2385 articles were retrieved from the Scopus database. The results revealed that China, India, Iran, and Taiwan have a vast collection of articles and have very strong international collaborations. The most cited authors were Sarkis, J., Zhu, Q., and Khan, S.A.R. The results also suggest that green supply chain management research was related to the field of engineering, environmental science, energy sciences, social sciences, and business management. Some new areas are discovered like green innovation, green information technology, green productivity, corporate environmental responsibility, green investments, green credit, and green credit policy. As evidenced from our bibliographic database search, it is observed that integrated work on green supply chain management and green finance is limited, and this makes this research work to be novel. This study is beneficial for credit managers and policymakers.

Accentuating the interconnection between green intellectual capital, green human resource management and sustainability

Purpose

The study aims to investigate the relationships between green intellectual capital, green human resource management (HRM), and sustainability.

Design/methodology/approach

The research is based on information gathered from 112 large Malaysian manufacturing companies.

Findings

The study findings revealed that green human capital and green relational capital positively influence green HRM. In addition, green HRM positively related to social, environmental and economic performance. Besides, green HRM positively mediates the relationships between green human capital and economic, social and environmental performance. Finally, green relational capital improves sustainability (economic, environmental, and social performance) mediated by green HRM.

Originality/value

The current study contributes to the literature by examining green IC (green human capital, green structural capital, and green relational capital) as an independent variable and green HRM as a mediating variable for sustainability (economic, environmental, and social performance). The findings and recommended for the managers of large manufacturing firms and practitioners to invest in green IC to achieve sustainability through green HRM.

Mediating role of pro-environmental behavior in environmentally specific transformational leadership and subjective well-being

Purpose

Based on self-determination theory, the paper investigates the link between environmentally specific transformational leadership (ETFL) and subjective well-being (SWB) of employees working in an energy intensive industry. The paper also aims to examine pro-environmental behavior (PEB) as a mediator mechanism between ETFL and SWB relationship.

Design/methodology/approach

An empirical research design was used for the analysis. In total, 293 respondents working in different energy intensive Indian companies filled the questionnaire for the study. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling SMART-PLS 3 software which is a graphical user interface for variance-based structural equation modeling using the partial least squares path modeling method. Two stages of analysis were conducted: the measurement model and the structural model.

Findings

The results indicate that (1) ETFL has a significant positive impact on PEB. (2) PEB is positively correlated to SWB. (3) ETFL has a significant impact on SWB. (4) The underlying mechanism process of ETFL and SWB relationship is explained by mediation of PEB.

Practical implications

Overall, the study insinuates that PEB act as underlying mechanism in environmental leadership and SWB of employees. The study further suggests that the management should promote green leaders for enhancing the overall SWB of the managements' employees especially in energy intensive sector. Doing so helps the managers to enhance managers' environmental conscious behavior for inducing SWB of employees.

Originality/value

The study contributes to novel findings in existing literature particularly to determine ETFL and PEB as predictors of SWB especially in energy intensive sector. The study also leads the ways for organizations by promoting green conscious leaders, which stimulates PEB among employees that ultimately contributes to SWB of employees. Furthermore, the research methodology can be used in other studies for variation of contextual variables such as size of the industry, developed or underdeveloped country and manufacturing or service industry.

Trends and patterns in pro-environmental behaviour research: a bibliometric review and research agenda

Purpose

The paper aims to analyse the current trends and set the future research agenda for pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) research.

Design/methodology/approach

The bibliographic data on pro-environmental behaviour research have been extracted from the Scopus database.

Findings

Based on the analysis of 2,173 publications, the study presents a performance overview of PEB research in the perspective of different aspects such as the most influential publications, authors, institutes and countries. Also, the study visualises the intellectual network by mapping bibliographic coupling (BC) and co-citation.

Originality/value

The study provides a holistic view of trends and future research directions for PEB research based on performance and science mapping, which is a unique contribution to the literature.

Finance for the Environment: A Scientometrics Analysis of Green Finance

To protect environmental sustainability, organizations are moving their focus towards greening the business process. Similarly to any other business function, financial management has also turned to environmentally friendly activities. Green finance is a new financial pattern that integrates environmental protection and economic profits. This paper analyses the publications on green finance, and their intellectual structure and networking. The bibliometric data on green finance research have been extracted from the Scopus database. This study finds the most productive countries, universities, authors, journals, and most prolific publications in green finance, through examining the published works. Also, the study visualizes the intellectual network by mapping bibliographic coupling (BC) and co-citation. The study’s essential contribution is the analysis of green finance developments and trajectories that can help scholars and practitioners to appreciate the trend and future studies.

Impact of Green Training on Environmental Performance through Mediating Role of Competencies and Motivation

This work aims to examine the impact of green training on green environmental performance through the mediating role of green competencies and motivation on the adoption of green human resource management. The convenience sampling technique was employed to collect data through an online survey undertaken at public and private universities in Malaysia. The analyses were conducted using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) v.25 and Smart PLS v.3 software, with the aim of testing the predefined hypotheses. It was revealed that green training has a significant impact on green environmental performance, and all six dimensions of green competencies, namely, skills, abilities, knowledge, behavior, attitude and awareness, were also green motivations. Both green competencies and motivations positively and significantly mediated the relationship between green training and environmental performance.

Internal environmental management and green human resource management: significant catalysts for improved corporate reputation and performance

Purpose

This paper investigates the combined effect of internal environmental management (IEM) and green human resource management (GHRM) on corporate reputation (CR), environmental performance (EP) and financial performance (FP). The paper further explores the indirect effects of CR and EP between the direct paths.

Design/methodology/approach

Data are garnered from 164 firms from three industries in Ghana. Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is the methodological technique used to test the hypothesized relationships.

Findings

The result demonstrates that unlike IEM which has a significant effect on FP when implemented in isolation, GHRM does not have a significant effect on FP. However, the joint implementation of IEM and GHRM can provide better results in terms of improved CR, enhanced EP and significant FP improvement. CR and EP were further found to mediate the relationship between the direct paths.

Practical implications

The results suggest that the joint implementation of IEM and GHRM is critical for firms that seek to enjoy superior reputation, enhance their environmental sustainability and achieve financial gains. Consequently, managers are strongly encouraged to create a sustainable and vibrant company via significant and rational investment in green initiatives like IEM and GHRM.

Originality/value

This study happens to be one of the first to develop a research model that investigates the joint effect of IEM and GHRM within the context of CR, environmental sustainability and FP.