STAKEHOLDER PRESSURE AND FIRMS’ ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATION: A CONFIGURATIONAL APPROACH

As environmental pollution becomes an increasingly prominent problem, stakeholders have proposed more stringent requirements for firms’ environmental protection behavior, which has become an important means for firms to cope with stakeholder pressure. Based on stakeholder theory and adopting the configuration perspective, this study explores the complex impact mechanism of stakeholder pressure on firms’ environmental innovation. We selected 505 listed companies in high energy-consuming industries in China as the research sample and analyzed the data using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Our findings indicate that single stakeholder pressure does not constitute a necessary condition for promoting firms’ environmental innovation. Our study finds six ways to promote firms’ environmental innovation, which can be summarized as market-, public-opinion-, and government-business-driven types. Pressure from consumers and suppliers has a significant impact on firms’ environmental innovation. This study’s findings help to deepen the understanding of the paths driving firms’ environmental innovation and provide a reference for firms to meet their stakeholders’ needs.