Yan Jiang

Firms' strategic decision‐making relies not only on their own information but also on that disclosed by supply chain partners. While research recognizes buyers' importance in green innovation, the impact of their information disclosure remains underdeveloped. Drawing on the extended resource‐based view, this study investigates the joint effect of buyers' quantitative and qualitative information disclosure on suppliers' green innovation, as well as the moderating role of suppliers' internal resources. Using a dyadic dataset of 1002 buyer–supplier pairs from China's manufacturing sector over 2008–2022, we find that the synergy between buyers' quantitative (operating profit) and qualitative (annual report tone) disclosures enhances suppliers' green innovation performance. This effect is further amplified in supplier firms with greater financial, technical, and human resources. Our study highlights the critical role of information disclosure along supply chains in advancing environmental sustainability, offering deeper insights into how downstream disclosure practices promote upstream green innovation.

By integrating the perspectives of age dependence and resource dependence theory (RDT), this paper explores the relationship between dependence on age‐distant suppliers and green innovation. Meanwhile, considering the mechanisms adopted by firms to manage supplier dependence, we also examine the moderating effects of various dependency management mechanisms. Utilizing a dataset of 1427 dyad‐year observations comprising 369 unique Chinese high‐polluting listed firms between 2008 and 2020, we find that the age distance between a buyer and its suppliers has a positive effect on green innovation. However, this positive association is weakened as the buyer firm progresses along its lifecycle stages, possesses state ownership (formal links with the government), or exhibits a high degree of board network centrality (informal links with other stakeholders). Our study contributes to the literature by offering important theoretical and practical implications and further refines RDT in the context of green innovation.

Purpose: While top management teams (TMTs) play an important role in shaping firms’ strategic choices and performance outcomes, studies on green innovation have rarely considered the influence of the TMT demographics of firms and their suppliers. Drawing upon upper echelon theory, this study investigates the impact of buyer–supplier TMT misalignment on green innovation performance, along with potential moderators of this effect.Design/methodology/approach: The empirical setting is Chinese-listed manufacturing firms that are present in both the Chinese Research Data Services Platform (CNRDS) database and the China Stock Market and Accounting Research (CSMAR) database. The study employs panel data regression methods on a dyadic dataset of 530 paired buyer–supplier firm-year observations over the period 2008–2019.Findings: Buyer–supplier TMT misalignment in terms of functional background and educational level is negatively associated with buyer green innovation performance. This negative effect can, however, be mitigated by TMT tenure and long-term incentives in buyer firms.Originality/value: By introducing the notion of TMT background misalignment to the supply chain, this study advances the understanding of relational TMT demographics in predicting organizational performance and extends upper echelon theory.

Purpose: Despite the growing interest in the role of relation-specific investments (RSIs) in superior firm performance, their impact on sustainability performance remains unexplored, as do the underlying mechanisms of such effects. Drawing on the relational view and resource orchestration theory (ROT), the authors propose that supply chain learning (SCL) mediates the link between RSIs and sustainability performance.Design/methodology/approach: A multi-method approach was adopted, combining a case study and survey. An exploratory case study of four Chinese manufacturing firms was first conducted to develop research hypotheses. A quantitative survey of data collected from 269 firms was then undertaken to test hypotheses.Findings: Property-based, knowledge-based and personal-based RSIs positively impact firm sustainability performance and SCL. SCL fully mediates the relationship between knowledge-as well as personal-based RSIs and sustainability performance, and partially mediates the relationship between property-based RSIs and sustainability performance.Practical implications: The study unveils important practical insights and approaches for firms endeavouring to achieve sustainability performance through RSIs and SCL.Originality/value: The study extends the RSIs literature by linking RSIs and sustainability performance and differentiating the effects of different types of RSIs on sustainability performance. The theorized underlying mechanism advances the understanding of SCL in the link between RSIs and sustainability performance.

In the post-pandemic era, libraries need to improve the emergency support of electronic resources and establish a relatively perfect electronic resource support system in order to adapt to the construction goal of the national emergency system as well as realize their own transformation and development. It must be realized through enhancing awareness and planning, strengthening policy support and top-level design, realizing rapid response and intelligent response, improving technical support, promoting resource synergy, integration, and sharing, strengthening community integration, as well as providing intelligent management and services.

A multi-tier supply chain is a complex system as it covers a focal company and multiple tiers of suppliers in a complex supply chain network. This study explores the complexity in multi-tier sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) through a social systems theory perspective. We carried out a case study on IKEA China’s sustainable cotton initiative and examined its five cotton-textile supply chains. The primary data were collected through 22 semi-structured interviews with managers of IKEA China and their multi-tier suppliers. The findings suggest that in order to cope with environmental complexity in implementing multi-tier sustainable initiatives, focal companies tend to create both internal complexity and collaborative complexity in a variety of governance mechanisms. In addition, environmental overlap and available collaborative complexity increase in this process and can feed back into systems to facilitate further creation of requisite variety. We contribute to the multi-tier SSCM literature through providing an in-depth understanding of nuanced mechanisms of managing different tiers of suppliers to cope with complexities by adopting a social systems theory perspective. We also contribute to multi-tier supply chain governance mechanisms from an evolution perspective.