ScholarWorks@성균관대학교

초록

Sustainable innovation (the development and diffusion of products, processes, and business models that simultaneously create economic value and reduce ecological externalities) has become a primary route through which firms lift environmental performance by cutting emissions, waste, and resource intensity while meeting escalating regulatory, market, and stakeholder pressures. Yet many organizations still struggle to convert their intangible assets into measurable environmental gains, pointing to ambidextrous intellectual capital (the firm's human, structural, and relational knowledge resources configured to balance exploration and exploitation) as a missing link that translates knowledge into green outcomes via innovation. This paper pursues four aims: first, to test the direct effect of ambidextrous intellectual capital on environmental performance; second, to examine two knowledge-to-impact pathways; through sustainable innovation and through the green supply network, defined as interorganizational practices such as green sourcing, supplier development, eco-design collaboration, and circularity partnerships; third, to assess configurational routes to high performance using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis; and fourth, to prioritize improvement levers with Importance–Performance Map Analysis. We analyze cross-sectional survey data from firms in China's chemical sector, a high-impact context where environmental compliance and innovation pressures are acute. Using OLS regressions for theory testing, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis for conjunctural insight, and Importance-Performance Map Analysis to spotlight high-importance/low-performance levers, we find no significant direct effect of ambidextrous intellectual capital on environmental performance and no mediated effect via green supply network; instead, ambidextrous intellectual capital exerts a strong positive influence on sustainable innovation, which in turn significantly boosts environmental performance, establishing sustainable innovation as the dominant transmission mechanism from ambidexterity to green outcomes. Conversely, green supply network shows a robust direct effect on environmental performance but does not carry the ambidextrous intellectual capital effect, suggesting that supply-network greening operates as an independent performance driver rather than an ambidextrous intellectual capital-dependent conduit. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis reveals multiple, equifinal configurations that achieve high environmental performance; most notably (A) high sustainable innovation combined with a strong green supply network (with ambidextrous intellectual capital present or moderate), and (B) strong green supply network even when ambidextrous intellectual capital is modest, provided sustainable innovation is nontrivial; underscoring complementarity between internal innovation and external network greening and the conditional role of ambidextrous intellectual capital. Importance–Performance Map Analysis highlights capability-building priorities: exploration routines that fuel eco-ideation, exploitation routines that codify and scale green processes, and supply-network levers (supplier eco-training, information integration, reverse logistics) with large importance–performance gaps. The study contributes by (1) resolving ambiguity around ambidextrous intellectual capital's environmental impact, showing its effect is indirect and contingent on sustainable innovation; (2) recharacterizing the green supply network as a parallel, direct driver rather than a mediator of the ambidextrous intellectual capital –performance link; (3) integrating OLS, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, and Importance–Performance Map Analysis for complementary theory testing, configurational explanation, and actionable prioritization; and (4) providing sector-specific evidence from China's chemical industry.

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