Educational Pathways for Sustainable Development: How Performance Feedback Shapes Green Innovation Learning

ABSTRACT Workplace education for sustainable development has become an important yet underexplored pathway through which organizations translate sustainability goals into concrete learning and innovation practices. While firms are increasingly expected to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals, their engagement in green innovation learning is often constrained by weak learning motivation and insufficient sustainability‐related capabilities. Drawing on firm behavioural theory and organizational learning theory, this study examines how performance feedback shapes corporate green innovation learning and how internal and external educational mechanisms influence this process. Using panel data from Chinese listed firms, we distinguish between performance aspiration deficits and performance aspiration surpluses and further differentiate exploitative and exploratory forms of green innovation learning. The results show that performance aspiration deficits have an inverted U‐shaped relationship with green innovation learning: moderate deficits stimulate learning, whereas excessive deficits generate defensive contraction, with firms showing a stronger tendency towards exploitative green innovation learning. By contrast, performance aspiration surpluses exhibit a U‐shaped relationship with green innovation learning: moderate surpluses tend to produce learning inertia, whereas substantial surpluses provide resources and confidence for renewed learning, particularly exploratory green innovation learning. More importantly, workplace green education significantly strengthens these relationships. Institutionalized environmental training, green knowledge‐sharing activities and internal learning routines help firms transform performance pressure into sustainability‐oriented learning actions by reshaping managerial cognition, enhancing employee capabilities, and stabilizing organizational learning routines. Government green education policies also play a positive moderating role by creating regional educational infrastructures through green publicity, technical training and knowledge dissemination, thereby improving managers' environmental literacy and reducing barriers to green knowledge acquisition. From the perspective of education for sustainable development, this study extends existing research by conceptualizing firms as important sites of workplace sustainability learning and by demonstrating how internal and public educational mechanisms jointly shape organizational responses to performance feedback. The findings provide empirical evidence for advancing sustainable development education beyond formal schooling and highlight the importance of educational governance in promoting corporate green transformation.