Greening the Nexus Between Managerial Innovativeness and Innovation Performance of Manufacturing SMEs: The Mediating Role of Green Ambidexterity

ABSTRACT The current business environment increasingly requires firms to adopt sustainable innovation strategies to improve their performance. Drawing from the dynamic capability theory and supported by upper echelons perspectives, this study examines the synergistic relationship between green managerial innovativeness and green ambidexterity on green innovation performance among manufacturing small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana. This study employed a purposive sampling technique to obtain cross‐sectional survey data from 359 manufacturing SMEs. The structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses revealed that green managerial innovativeness positively affects both green innovation performance, and green exploitative–exploratory ambidexterity. In addition, the effect of green managerial innovativeness on green innovation performance is mediated by both exploitative and exploratory ambidexterity. This is one of the earliest studies to green the framework of managerial innovativeness, ambidexterity, and innovation performance concerning manufacturing SMEs in emerging markets, and thus, its findings contribute to establishing firms' competitive green strategy.