Integrating leadership, identity, and knowledge systems for sustainable performance in the era of digital transformation

As organizations face mounting environmental challenges, understanding how green management practices collectively enhance sustainable performance becomes critical. This study investigates the complex relationships between green leadership, organizational identity, knowledge management, human resource management, innovation behavior, and sustainable performance through an integrated theoretical framework combining Resource-Based View, Upper Echelons Theory, and Signaling Theory. Using structural equation modeling with data from 365 managers across Vietnamese industries, we find that green leadership significantly influences sustainable performance through multiple mediating pathways. Green human resource management emerges as the strongest catalyst for innovation behavior, while green innovation behavior serves as the primary driver of sustainable performance. The study reveals that green organizational identity and knowledge management function as critical mediating mechanisms, with innovation behavior mediating of leadership’s effect on performance. This research contributes by demonstrating how the triangulation of three theoretical perspectives provides a comprehensive understanding of green management’s impact on organizational sustainability in the digital era.