Enabling routines for green innovation: Strategic management processes, entrepreneurial motivation, creativity, and work performance in Indonesian SMEs

Type of the article: Research ArticleAbstractThis study investigates how entrepreneurial motivation and the strategic management process, conceptualized as enabling routines, shape organizational creativity and green innovation, and how green innovation relates to employee performance in resource-constrained Indonesian SMEs. In 2025, an online survey targeted SME owners and managers with decision authority for strategy, innovation, or human resources across nine Indonesian cities. Invitations were sent to 1,300 SMEs, 412 responses were received (31.7%), and 377 usable cases remained after screening. PLS-SEM (5,000 bootstrap resamples) indicates that strategic management process predicts organizational creativity (β = 0.682, p < 0.001), which predicts green innovation (β = 0.288, p < 0.001) and, in turn, employee performance (β = 0.574, p < 0.001). Entrepreneurial motivation negatively predicts organizational creativity (β = −0.084, p = 0.003). Mediation tests confirm a positive serial indirect effect from strategic management process to employee performance via creativity and green innovation (β = 0.113, p = 0.001) and a negative serial indirect effect for entrepreneurial motivation via the same pathway (β = −0.014, p = 0.007). The model integrates dynamic capabilities and self-determination perspectives by positioning organizational creativity as the microfoundational mechanism. The results imply that disciplined strategic routines provide an enabling infrastructure for creativity-based green implementation, whereas pressure-oriented motivation can undermine the creative engagement required for sustainability change. The evidence is limited by cross-sectional, self-reported data from one country, and future research should employ longitudinal and multi-source designs.AcknowledgmentWe declare that this paper did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. We thank the participating SME owner-managers and the research assistants who supported fieldwork across the study cities. Ethical approval was obtained from the relevant institutional committee, and all participants provided informed consent. We gratefully acknowledge the use of ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2025 version) to support language refinement and grammar improvement during manuscript preparation. The tool was used exclusively for copy-editing to enhance linguistic clarity and readability. No part of the research design, data collection, data analysis, interpretation of results, or substantive content was generated by AI. We take full responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the paper.