Green corporate social responsibility and green competitive advantage as drivers transforming sustainable leadership into sustainable performance: evidence from Vietnam SMEs

As the environment continues to degrade, sustainable business models are gaining increasing attention, particularly among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets such as Vietnam. This study aims to assess how sustainable leadership (SL) can drive sustainable performance (SP) through green factors, including green corporate social responsibility (GCSR) and green competitive advantage (GCA). Grounded in the Natural Resource-Based View (NRBV), the study conceptualizes sustainable leadership as a resource orchestration capability that enables the transformation of environmental commitments into competitive advantage and performance outcomes. A quantitative approach was employed using a structured questionnaire. The sample was collected from business owners and middle-level managers working in manufacturing enterprises located in industrial zones. A total of 351 valid responses were gathered and analyzed using SmartPLS software. The findings indicate that sustainable leadership positively influences sustainable performance, both directly and indirectly, through green corporate social responsibility and green competitive advantage. Additionally, this study contributes by providing evidence of a sequential mediation mechanism among SL to GCSR to GCA to SP. These results highlight the importance of integrating GCSR and GCA into sustainable leadership to foster long-term sustainability for SMEs in emerging economies. By extending NRBV to the context of manufacturing SMEs in an emerging economy, these results provide new theoretical insight into how leadership facilitates environmental resource transformation to achieve long-term sustainability.