IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/bstrat/v34y2025i5p5141-5157.html

The Generativity Mindsets of Corporations: A New Perspective on Ecological Responsiveness

Author

Listed:
  • Huei‐ting Tsai
  • Chia‐Ju Chuang

Abstract

The dominant line of academic research suggests that external forces, such as institutional and stakeholder pressure, are the reasons driving companies to behave ecologically responsive. However, few studies consider the intrinsic motivation cultivated based on corporate values driving an enterprise's engagement in ecological responsiveness. To explore this prospect further, this study proposes the concept of the generativity mindsets of corporations and identifies the components of the generativity mindset as the mindset of the next generation, the long‐term mindset, and the altruistic mindset. This study investigated the antecedents driving ecological responsiveness, and examined the relationship among the generativity mindset, reputational demand and ecological responsiveness, as well as the effect they have on business performance. Data collected from 281 manufacturing companies is analyzed using structural equation modelling. The findings indicated that among the factors that drive companies to behave ecologically responsive, the generativity mindset of companies has a more significant effect than external reputational demand. Moreover, this study found that ecological responsiveness significantly impacts business performance. The results of this study are valuable for managers to cultivate employees with the concept of generativity mindset to carry out the company's sustainable development initiatives and shoulder even greater social responsibility. This will help companies exert important influence in society to mitigate the climate crisis.

Suggested Citation

  • Huei‐ting Tsai & Chia‐Ju Chuang, 2025. "The Generativity Mindsets of Corporations: A New Perspective on Ecological Responsiveness," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(5), pages 5141-5157, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:34:y:2025:i:5:p:5141-5157
    DOI: 10.1002/bse.4251
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.4251
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/bse.4251?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kristel Buysse & Alain Verbeke, 2003. "Proactive environmental strategies: a stakeholder management perspective," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 453-470, May.
    2. Sanjay Sharma & Irene Henriques, 2005. "Stakeholder influences on sustainability practices in the Canadian forest products industry," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 159-180, February.
    3. Barbara Kump, 2021. "When do threats mobilize managers for organizational change toward sustainability? An environmental belief model," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(5), pages 2713-2726, July.
    4. Magali A. Delmas & Michael W. Toffel, 2008. "Organizational responses to environmental demands: opening the black box," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(10), pages 1027-1055, October.
    5. Jacob D Rendtorff, 2019. "Sustainable Development Goals and progressive business models for economic transformation," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 34(6), pages 510-524, September.
    6. Rahman, Muhammad Sabbir & Bag, Surajit & Gupta, Shivam & Sivarajah, Uthayasankar, 2023. "Technology readiness of B2B firms and AI-based customer relationship management capability for enhancing social sustainability performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    7. Charbel Jose Chiappetta Jabbour & Stefan Seuring & Ana Beatriz Lopes De Sousa Jabbour & Daniel Jugend & Paula de Camargo Fiorini & Hengky Latan & Wagner Colucci Izeppi, 2020. "Stakeholders, innovative business models for the circular economy and sustainable performance of firms in an emerging economy facing institutional voids," Post-Print hal-04275092, HAL.
    8. Fabien Martinez, 2021. "Ecological responsiveness and business performance: Four scenarios of compatibility and a multi‐faceted strategies framework," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(8), pages 3606-3625, December.
    9. Armstrong, J. Scott & Overton, Terry S., 1977. "Estimating Nonresponse Bias in Mail Surveys," MPRA Paper 81694, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Richard Heede, 2014. "Tracing anthropogenic carbon dioxide and methane emissions to fossil fuel and cement producers, 1854–2010," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 122(1), pages 229-241, January.
    11. Buchholz, Rogene A., 1991. "Corporate responsibility and the good society: From economics to ecology," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 19-31.
    12. Mooweon Rhee, 2009. "Does Reputation Contribute to Reducing Organizational Errors? A Learning Approach," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(4), pages 676-703, June.
    13. United Nations UN, 2015. "Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development," Working Papers id:7559, eSocialSciences.
    14. James B. Abugre & Alex Anlesinya, 2019. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Business Value of Multinational Companies: Lessons from a Sub-Saharan African Environment," Journal of African Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(4), pages 435-454, October.
    15. Barış Armutcu & Veland Ramadani & Ahmet Tan & Andrea Appolloni, 2025. "Understanding the Role of Consumers for a Sustainable Future: Empirical Evidence From a Three‐Stage Hybrid Analysis Incorporating Bibliometrics, PLS‐SEM, and ANN," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(2), pages 2065-2087, February.
    16. Mani, Venkatesh & Gunasekaran, Angappa, 2018. "Four forces of supply chain social sustainability adoption in emerging economies," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 150-161.
    17. Edwards, John & Miles, Morgan P. & D'Alessandro, Steven & Frost, Mark, 2023. "Entrepreneurial strategy-making, corporate entrepreneurship preparedness and entrepreneurial sales actions: Improving B2B sales performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dai, Jing & Montabon, Frank L. & Cantor, David E., 2014. "Linking rival and stakeholder pressure to green supply management: Mediating role of top management support," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 173-187.
    2. Dai, Jing & Montabon, Frank L. & Cantor, David E., 2015. "Reprint of “Linking rival and stakeholder pressure to green supply management: Mediating role of top management support”," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 124-138.
    3. Wagner, Marcus, 2015. "The link of environmental and economic performance: Drivers and limitations of sustainability integration," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(6), pages 1306-1317.
    4. Elisa Alt & Emilio Díez-de-Castro & Francisco Lloréns-Montes, 2015. "Linking Employee Stakeholders to Environmental Performance: The Role of Proactive Environmental Strategies and Shared Vision," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 167-181, April.
    5. Marcos Carchano & Inmaculada Carrasco & Angela González, 2025. "Examining environmental proactivity in the Spanish wine industry: The moderating role of size," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(1), pages 127-157, January.
    6. Leal, Ana R. & Husted, Bryan W. & Flores Segovia, Miguel Alejandro, 2021. "Environmental performance spillovers among Mexican industrial facilities: The case of greenhouse gases," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 711-720.
    7. Javier Delgado-Ceballos & Juan Aragón-Correa & Natalia Ortiz-de-Mandojana & Antonio Rueda-Manzanares, 2012. "The Effect of Internal Barriers on the Connection Between Stakeholder Integration and Proactive Environmental Strategies," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 107(3), pages 281-293, May.
    8. Encarnacion García-Sánchez & Víctor Jesús García-Morales & Rodrigo Martín-Rojas, 2018. "Analysis of the influence of the environment, stakeholder integration capability, absorptive capacity, and technological skills on organizational performance through corporate entrepreneurship," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 345-377, June.
    9. Oksana Seroka‐Stolka & Kamil Fijorek, 2020. "Enhancing corporate sustainable development: Proactive environmental strategy, stakeholder pressure and the moderating effect of firm size," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 2338-2354, September.
    10. Papadas, Karolos-Konstantinos & Avlonitis, George J. & Carrigan, Marylyn & Piha, Lamprini, 2019. "The interplay of strategic and internal green marketing orientation on competitive advantage," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 632-643.
    11. Steffen Maas & Tassilo Schuster & Evi Hartmann, 2018. "Stakeholder Pressures, Environmental Practice Adoption and Economic Performance in the German Third-party Logistics Industry—A Contingency Perspective," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 88(2), pages 167-201, February.
    12. Oksana Seroka-Stolka, 2023. "Enhancing Environmental Sustainability: Stakeholder Pressure and Corporate CO 2 -Related Performance—An Examination of the Mediating and Moderating Effects of Corporate Decarbonization Strategies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-18, September.
    13. Julia Wolf, 2014. "The Relationship Between Sustainable Supply Chain Management, Stakeholder Pressure and Corporate Sustainability Performance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 119(3), pages 317-328, February.
    14. Norifumi Kawai & Roger Strange & Antonella Zucchella, 2016. "Stakeholder Pressures, EMS Implementation, and Green Innovation in MNC Overseas Subsidiaries," DEM Working Papers Series 121, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.
    15. Rathore, Himanshu & Jakhar, Suresh Kumar & Bhattacharya, Arijit & Madhumitha, E., 2020. "Examining the mediating role of innovative capabilities in the interplay between lean processes and sustainable performance," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 497-508.
    16. Antony Paulraj & Injazz J. Chen & Constantin Blome, 2017. "Motives and Performance Outcomes of Sustainable Supply Chain Management Practices: A Multi-theoretical Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 145(2), pages 239-258, October.
    17. David G Hyatt & Nicholas Berente, 2017. "Substantive or Symbolic Environmental Strategies? Effects of External and Internal Normative Stakeholder Pressures," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(8), pages 1212-1234, December.
    18. Jeremy Galbreath & Chia‐Yang Chang & Daniel Tisch, 2023. "The impact of a proactive environmental strategy on environmentally sustainable practices in service firms: The moderating effect of information use value," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(8), pages 5420-5434, December.
    19. Runhui Lin & Yuan Gui & Zaiyang Xie & Lu Liu, 2019. "Green Governance and International Business Strategies of Emerging Economies’ Multinational Enterprises: A Multiple-Case Study of Chinese Firms in Pollution-Intensive Industries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-32, February.
    20. Yi-Hui Ho & Cheng-Kun Wang & Chieh-Yu Lin, 2022. "Antecedents and Consequences of Green Mindfulness: A Conceptual Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(11), pages 1-19, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:34:y:2025:i:5:p:5141-5157. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-0836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.