Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Antecedents of green supplier championing and greenwashing
T2 - An empirical study on leadership and ethical incentives
AU - Blome, Constantin
AU - Foerstl, Kai
AU - Schleper, Martin C.
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2017 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2017/5/20
Y1 - 2017/5/20
N2 - Buying firms are increasingly confronted with compliance scandals in their upstream supply chain, for which they are held accountable by their stakeholders. Purely symbolic practices, typically referred to as greenwashing, as well as substantive practices, such as green supplier championing, are thus receiving widespread attention in business practices and academia alike. In this study, we reveal the impact of two opposing leadership dimensions following the concepts of ethical and transactional leadership as antecedents for green supplier championing and greenwashing. We particularly address whether these antecedents have a complementary or a counterproductive effect on green supplier championing and greenwashing. Furthermore, we investigate the complementary impact of incentives and the two leadership styles on achieving sustainability behavior. The resulting model is tested using a path analysis based on a data set of 118 firms located in Germany. We find support for the positive impact of ethical leadership on green supplier championing but also a non-significant negative impact on greenwashing. Greenwashing is significantly impacted by leadership styles reflecting obedience to authority, and further moderated by ethical incentives. Interestingly, ethical incentives do not moderate the impact of ethical leadership on green supplier championing. Finally, we discuss implications for theory and business practice.
AB - Buying firms are increasingly confronted with compliance scandals in their upstream supply chain, for which they are held accountable by their stakeholders. Purely symbolic practices, typically referred to as greenwashing, as well as substantive practices, such as green supplier championing, are thus receiving widespread attention in business practices and academia alike. In this study, we reveal the impact of two opposing leadership dimensions following the concepts of ethical and transactional leadership as antecedents for green supplier championing and greenwashing. We particularly address whether these antecedents have a complementary or a counterproductive effect on green supplier championing and greenwashing. Furthermore, we investigate the complementary impact of incentives and the two leadership styles on achieving sustainability behavior. The resulting model is tested using a path analysis based on a data set of 118 firms located in Germany. We find support for the positive impact of ethical leadership on green supplier championing but also a non-significant negative impact on greenwashing. Greenwashing is significantly impacted by leadership styles reflecting obedience to authority, and further moderated by ethical incentives. Interestingly, ethical incentives do not moderate the impact of ethical leadership on green supplier championing. Finally, we discuss implications for theory and business practice.
KW - Ethical leadership
KW - Green championing
KW - Greenwashing
KW - Path analysis
KW - Substantive actions
KW - Supplier management
KW - Sustainability
KW - Symbolic actions
KW - Transactional leadership
U2 - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.03.052
DO - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.03.052
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85017651066
VL - 152
SP - 339
EP - 350
JO - Journal of Cleaner Production
JF - Journal of Cleaner Production
SN - 0959-6526
ER -