The Path-Dependent Logic of Innovation and Environmental Performance: Leveraging KBV to Integrate Human Resources and Knowledge Systems

The capacity to coordinate human capital and knowledge resources to sustainable innovation has emerged as the final boundary to organizational survival in the transition to a global green economy. This research paper explains the strategic design of Green Human Resource Management (GHRM), Green Knowledge Sharing (GKS), and Green Innovation (GI) as an integrated architecture towards the optimal Organizational Environmental Performance (OEP). Based on the Knowledge-Based View (KBV) and the Natural Resource-Based View (NRBV), the study outlines how manufacturing companies develop path-dependent capabilities in which human capital and knowledge intangibles are integrated into ecological excellence. The empirical data were collected via a multi-respondent approach from an initial sample of 500 manufacturing SMEs from China, yielding 309 final valid and complete responses. The outcomes of Covariance-Based Structural Equation Modeling (CB-SEM) conducted via AMOS v.26 demonstrate strong evidence that GHRM positively influences GKS and leads to enhanced green innovation, which subsequently improves OEP. In particular, the results support the view that green knowledge is a strategic-level resource, concomitant with KBV, that enables the smooth incorporation of idiosyncratic environmental knowledge into routine operations. This study provides a clear strategic road map, which holds that the harmonization of human resource systems with knowledge-based resources is the most plausible path to achieving high levels of environmental performance in an ever-more institutionalized, environmentally conscious global supply chain.