Do green human resource management and green innovation drive green competitive advantage? Insights from Delphi and analytic hierarchy process

Purpose While the benefits of green competitive advantage (GCA) are now widely acknowledged, existing literature offers limited insights into the drivers of green human resource management (GHRM) and green innovation on GCA. This study aims to explore GHRM practices and green innovation influencing GCA and to rank the relative importance of these factors. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative analyses. Data were collected from surveys of managers in Vietnam through three rounds of the Delphi method and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Findings The findings of this study identified a comprehensive set of eight factors and 20 sub-factors contributing to GCA. The factors, ranked by importance, are: responsible leadership, training and development, selection and recruitment, green product innovation, green process innovation, employee involvement, compensation and reward and performance appraisal. The iterative survey process, combined with open-ended questions in each round and the increasing clarity technique, provided deeper insights and explanations of the results. Originality/value This study integrates the Ability–Motivation–Opportunity theory and the Resource-Based View into a single framework to compare and rank their relative importance for GCA. This research adopts an approach that has received relatively little attention in the existing literature, combining qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the topic from a managerial perspective, thereby providing deeper insights into the field.