The Impact of Humble Leadership on the Green Innovation Performance of Chinese Manufacturing Enterprises: A Moderated Mediation Model

Currently, environmental issues negatively affect both firm performance and economic development, prompting society to expect enterprises to address these issues more effectively. In response, organizations, particularly manufacturing enterprises, have begun to adopt green innovation. This study examines how humble leadership in enterprise management affects organizational green innovation performance. Additionally, this study explores the mediating role of the organizational caring ethical climate and the moderating roles of the organizational structure and unabsorbed organizational resource slack. This study involved top managers from 357 manufacturing enterprises in Zhejiang Province, yielding 306 valid questionnaires. The Hierarchical regression technique is used to analyze the survey data. An analysis of the data shows that humble leadership positively affects organizational green innovation performance, with the organizational caring ethical climate serving as a mediator. Furthermore, the organizational structure and organizational resource slack positively moderate the effect of the organizational caring ethical climate on green innovation performance. This study validates and enriches social learning theory; social exchange theory; conservation of resource theory; and ability, motivation, and opportunity theory. It also provides new insights into the relationship between humble leadership and green innovation performance and expands research on the moderators of the relationship between the organizational caring ethical climate and green innovation performance. The findings suggest that managers of manufacturing enterprises should adopt humble leadership, promote a caring ethical climate, and enhance cooperation with stakeholders.