Purpose – The authors aim to apply an “interpretive context – organizational action – outcome”
framework to explore the positive effect of green organizational identity on green innovation
performance. Besides, they would like to verify that both environmental commitment and
environmental organizational legitimacy mediate between green organizational identity and green
innovation performance.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors utilize a hybrid research method that includes both
questionnaire data and public data to test the hypotheses to satisfy the triangulation in methodology.
In addition, structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to perform the empirical research.
Findings – The results show that green organizational identity would positively affect green
innovation performance. Moreover, green organizational identity could positively influence green
innovation performance indirectly via environmental commitment and environmental organizational
legitimacy. Firms should increase their green organizational identity, environmental commitment, and
environmental organizational legitimacy to enhance their green innovation performance. Furthermore,
the authors find out that green organizational identity, environmental commitment, environmental
organizational legitimacy, and green innovation performance of small and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs) are lower than those of large enterprises in Taiwan.
Originality/value – The authors develop a research framework to explore the positive effect of
green organizational identity on green innovation and explore the mediation effects of environmental
commitment and environmental organizational legitimacy.
Keywords Environmental commitment, Environmental organizational legitimacy,
Green organizational identity, Green innovation, Environmental management, Innovation
Paper type Research paper