# The Impact of Green Organizational Identity on Green Competitive Advantage: The Role of Green Ambidexterity Innovation and Organizational Flexibility

Authors: Yunqi Chen; Linlin Gao; Yue Zhang
Journal: Mathematical Problems in Engineering
 (2022)

---

## Abstract

There is no consistent result on the relationship between green organizational identity (GOI) and corporate green competitive advantage (GCA) in the existing literature. The omission of crucial mediating variables may be one of the important reasons. Based on the organizational identity theory and exploration-exploitation paradigm, this article studies the relationship between GOI and GCA in a model that includes mediating variables composed of green exploitative innovation (GEI) and green exploratory innovation (GER), and organizational flexibility (OF) as a moderating variable. The empirical test of survey data from polluting enterprises in China shows that GOI has a positive effect on green ambidexterity innovation and GCA. Both GEI and GER have a positive impact on GCA. Moreover, green ambidexterity innovation has a partial mediating effect between GOI and GCA, but the moderating effect of OF between green ambidexterity innovation (GAI) and GCA is different, and OF only negatively moderates the relationship between GER and GCA. These findings suggest that GOI can influence firms to choose different innovative ways between GEI and GER to obtain GCA, which counts on different levels of OF.


---

## Body

## 1. Introduction

With the deterioration of the global environment, the realization of sustainable development has gradually become the common expectation of the whole world. At present, enterprises all over the world are facing severe environmental pressures. Environmental issues affect firm performance [1, 2]. In this situation, countries have risen the importance of environmental protection and green development to an unprecedented new level. From the perspective of the natural resource-based view, the natural environment will restrict the maintenance of enterprises’ sustainable competitive advantage [3]. In order to deal with environmental issues, the focus of corporate strategy should be consistent with environmental standards and transform potential threats into competitive advantages. Green development is the correct direction and new model of global future development [4].In recent years, economic development has faced increasingly prominent problems of resource and environmental constraints in China. In particular, companies engaged in heavily polluting industries such as coal have a lack of innovation resources and weak environmental adaptability, making it difficult to achieve innovation synergy according to environmental changes [5]. Breeding new profit growth points through green innovation is the fundamental way for resource-based enterprises to achieve transformation and upgrading, and it is also the key path for resource-based enterprises to get rid of the predicament of unsustainable development [6]. In order to promote high-quality economic development, it is urgent for such enterprises to realize green innovation, transformation, and upgrading [5]. However, the green practices of Chinese enterprises include both successful models of green innovation and painful lessons of being brave in green innovation and suffering losses and bankruptcy. In addition, in 2021, the Chinese government proposed the concepts of “carbon peaking” and “carbon neutrality” for the first time, emphasizing that China still needs to further strengthen environmental governance and promote green innovation and development in the future [7]. Although the government has issued a number of policies to promote the internalization of the external cost of green innovation for enterprises and reduce the risk of green innovation, the effect of green innovation of enterprises is still unsatisfactory [5]. The number of green patent applications is still less than 10% of the total number of patent applications [5]. Considering that China is still in the early stage of economic transformation and upgrading, the willingness to reduce emissions and the awareness of environmental protection has not yet widespread among enterprises [7], and relevant research is also very scarce in China. The transformation of the development model under the low-carbon economy and the adjustment of the overall pattern of the energy structure will undoubtedly bring unprecedented threats and challenges to polluting enterprises. At the same time, the development of emerging clean and green energy also brings new requirements and opportunities to polluting enterprises [5]. When companies consider environmental goals, their strategic decisions will inevitably make major adjustments, and green issues have become one of the important reasons for promoting corporate transformation [7]. Therefore, how to effectively implement the sustainable development strategy and gain green competitive advantage (GCA) has become one of the most frontier and challenging issues.According to the existing literature, green innovation is one of the important strategic tools for sustainable development of enterprises. For one thing, it can meet the requirements of environmental protection. For another, through green innovation, enterprises can realize innovation in product design and packaging [6, 8]. Therefore, it is easier for enterprises to gain competitive advantages through green innovation. Although many studies have shown that green innovation is one of the driving forces for enterprise to gain competitive advantage [9, 10], there is no consistent consequence why and how enterprises engage in green innovation to improve their own performance and win competitive advantage. The possible reason may be that green innovation has ambidexterity externality, and the enterprises that take the lead in implementing green innovation strategy have great risks and higher costs [11, 12]. In particular, the greater the extent to which green innovation breaks organizational practices, the lower the willingness of enterprises to take environmental actions, and the high cost of this change will play an amplifying and moderating role in this effect [13]. Zameer et al. [2] emphasized that internal organizational factors can significantly affect external factors. Previous scholars mostly conducted research from the perspective of stakeholders or institutional theories to explore the external driving factors of corporate green innovation [14–16], but few explored the mechanism of forming competitive advantage from the perspective of corporate internal resources and capabilities such as organizational identity. The innovation of enterprises is actually the implementation of innovation by employees. Based on the perspective of social psychology, the essence of the organizational identity can be explored by applying the theory of social identity [14, 17]. Social identity refers to the individual’s cognition of the membership, values, and emotional maintenance of the organization [18]. Cultural identity refers to the sense of belonging and commitment formed by individuals in their cultural groups [17]. It is a social and psychological process to maintain and update their cultural attributes. The social and cultural identity of green development can internalize the members of the organization as the internal driving force of green innovation [19]. Organizational identity is one of the forms of social identity, which brings the theory and method of social identity to the research and practice field of organizational identity [17]. Organizational identity is the collective cognitive framework of an organization, which can affect the behavior of all employees [20]. Chen [14] proposed a new concept of GOI by integrating environmental protection into the framework of the organizational identity. Although some studies have further revealed the direct relationship between GOI and GCA, the process mechanism of GOI for GCA is still ambiguous [21]. Hence, it is necessary to explore whether green ambidexterity innovation plays a mediating role in the relationship between GOI and GCA.Furthermore, with the rapid increase of environmental uncertainties, more researchers have turned to pay attention to organizational flexibility (OF), which is defined as the firm’s adaptability to the uncertainty that comes from variations in market demand and competitiveness [22]. Improving flexibility is a crucial tool to predict organizational performance and a feasible solution for enterprise to promote competitiveness in a turbulent environment [23]. OF is a broad concept that can be divided into several dimensions. This study will follow the view of Sanchez [24], which pointed out that organizational flexibility (OF) includes resource flexibility (RF) and capability flexibility (CF). In addition, unlike the enterprises in developed countries, enterprises in emerging economies such as China, which is undergoing an economic transformation, are facing a more complex environment, and the willingness to increase OF is stronger. Therefore, under such circumstances, it is very meaningful to deeply explore the moderation effect of OF on the indirect effect of GOI on GCA through GEI and GER in the Chinese context.Based on the natural resource-based theory, social identity theory, and organizational identity theory, this article studies the influence of green organizational identity on green innovation and competitive advantage of enterprises from the perspective of more specific internal factors of organizations. This study contributes to the enterprise environmental management literature in three ways: (i) this article explores the effect of GOI on green innovation and sustainable competitive advantage of enterprises in China, which further explores the effectiveness and boundary conditions of the interaction among the three variables. (ii) It divides the dynamic evolution of green innovation into GEI and GER, and explores the heterogeneity of their influence on GCA, which deepens the application of ambidexterity theory in the field of innovation and further develops the green innovation theory. At the same time, taking green ambidexterity innovation as an intermediary variable, this article analyzes the effect mechanism of GOI on the GCA, which is helpful to explain the action path of GOI on the GCA and reveal the “black box” of how GOI plays a role. (iii) It adds the variable of OF to the relationship between green innovation and GCA, which more accurately explains the essence of the effectiveness of green innovation on GCA and provides a more specific boundary range for the impact mechanism, which validates the effectiveness of the Porter hypothesis to some extent.The rest of this article is organized as follows. In the second section, the theoretical background and hypotheses are developed. The research methodology is described in the third section, followed by the results and analyses in the fourth section. Conclusions were derived in the fifth section. Finally, the theoretical implications, practical implications, and limitations of this study, as well as the direction for future research, were discussed in brief in the sixth section.


## 2. Theoretical Background

### 2.1. Green Organizational Identity (GOI)

Organizational identity can be explored by applying the theory of social identity [14, 17]. Organizational identity is a series of beliefs about what is the core, lasting, and distinctive of an organization [18]. According to the organizational identity theory, organizational identity can help members to understand the organization and the job better, enhance their identification and commitment to the organizational goal, and therefore maintain synchronization with the organization [15]. The performance of organizational identity, such as cooperative intention, satisfaction, organization-based self-esteem, and organizational citizenship behavior, has an important impact on enterprise innovation [21]. Although previous studies have extensively discussed organizational identity, few studies have focused on environmental factors in organizational identity, applying organizational identity models to the field of environmental management, and using green organizational identity as a factor in explaining environmental issues. Based on the needs of internal economic development and corporate social responsibility, environmental protection issues are an integral part of the organizational identity framework. In order to accommodate this development tendency, GOI is proposed by Chen [14], which defined GOI as an organizational identity model of environmental management and green innovation jointly established by the members of the organization in order to make environmental protection actions meaningful. The relevant studies are also scarce in China.In the context of greater environmental pressure, green organizational identity can better explain the new adaptive behavior of organizations, such as the understanding of green innovation behavior [18]. According to the natural resource-based view, green organizational identity is a green resource that promotes enterprises to establish sustainable competitive advantages and cannot be imitated [14]. In environmental management, organizational members need to establish a common concept of interconnectedness with organizations, teams, and individuals [17]. Green organization identity helps members to clearly understand the connection between the goals and actions of the organizational green innovation and builds a shared interpretation model on the basis of understanding and excavating the profound meaning of superficial behavior [21]. However, existing research has not placed green organizational identity in the overall research framework of corporate green innovation behavior and has not formed a relatively complete organizational identity model in the field of environmental management. Hence, it is of great significance to explore how GOI can help Chinese enterprises to gain GCA.


### 2.2. Green Ambidexterity Innovation

Green innovation is the organic integration of green development, ecological environment concept, and innovation theory under the background of sustainable development. The goal of green innovation is the unity of economic, social, and environmental benefits. In this article, green innovation is defined as all innovative behaviors that can improve environmental performance and sustainable competitive advantage with the goal of sustainable development of enterprises and the purpose of green development concept, including innovation activities that consider the negative impact of enterprises’ operation on the environment in terms of technology, products, services, and markets. Based on “ambidexterity innovation,” this study divides green innovation into two dimensions: green exploitative innovation (GEI) and green exploratory innovation (GER). According to Li et al. [25], green innovation is a process of green knowledge creation, application, and transfer, which is the innovation process of spiral evolution of enterprises from exploitative innovation to exploratory innovation and then from exploratory innovation to exploitative innovation.As the growing importance of green innovation, many studies have tried to explore the antecedents of green innovation [1, 14]. These antecedents can be roughly divided into two categories: external contextual factors and internal organizational factors. The former category mainly includes market demand, environmental regulations, and pressure from other stakeholders, and the latter involves corporate environmental ethics, environmental leadership, corporate culture, and corporate capabilities [14, 21].In the existing literature, only a few research studies have explored the internal organizational factors affecting green innovation. Therefore, this article will try to explore the impact of GOI on corporate green ambidexterity innovation and competitive advantage from inherent angle of enterprises.


### 2.3. Organizational Flexibility (OF)

Organizational flexibility (OF) is the adaptability, changeability, and response capability of an enterprise to cope with an uncertain environment. However, flexibility is a broad and ambiguous concept, which is often considered to be difficult to capture [26]. As a multidimensional concept, OF can be described by dividing it into several dimensions. Volberda [27] has categorized flexibility into operational flexibility, structural flexibility, and strategic flexibility. Other dimensions such as leadership flexibility and technological flexibility have also been discussed. Firms’ potential primarily depends on intrinsic flexibility of their resources and their ability to coordinate the use of those resources to achieve strategic goals [28], so the paper divided organizational flexibility into resource flexibility (RF) and capability flexibility (CF) according to Sanchez [24]. The essence of RF is to expand the applicable scope of resources to increase the choice of enterprises when the environment changes, which supports enterprises to change their business strategies at a lower cost [26]. CF refers to the discovery of new resources and the integration of existing resources in an exploratory way in the process of coping with environmental changes. It is essentially reflected in the identification and grasp of opportunities by enterprises.As the environment becomes more uncertain, most scholars have paid more attention to the role of OF. It is considered to be a mandatory requirement for innovation and the most vital source of corporate competitive advantage [27]. However, the existing studies have not explored that whether OF as a moderator variable can affect the relationship between green ambidexterity innovation and corporate GCA. Therefore, the main aim of our study is to explore the heterogeneity of the relationships between green ambidexterity innovation and GCA under different levels of OF.


## 2.1. Green Organizational Identity (GOI)

Organizational identity can be explored by applying the theory of social identity [14, 17]. Organizational identity is a series of beliefs about what is the core, lasting, and distinctive of an organization [18]. According to the organizational identity theory, organizational identity can help members to understand the organization and the job better, enhance their identification and commitment to the organizational goal, and therefore maintain synchronization with the organization [15]. The performance of organizational identity, such as cooperative intention, satisfaction, organization-based self-esteem, and organizational citizenship behavior, has an important impact on enterprise innovation [21]. Although previous studies have extensively discussed organizational identity, few studies have focused on environmental factors in organizational identity, applying organizational identity models to the field of environmental management, and using green organizational identity as a factor in explaining environmental issues. Based on the needs of internal economic development and corporate social responsibility, environmental protection issues are an integral part of the organizational identity framework. In order to accommodate this development tendency, GOI is proposed by Chen [14], which defined GOI as an organizational identity model of environmental management and green innovation jointly established by the members of the organization in order to make environmental protection actions meaningful. The relevant studies are also scarce in China.In the context of greater environmental pressure, green organizational identity can better explain the new adaptive behavior of organizations, such as the understanding of green innovation behavior [18]. According to the natural resource-based view, green organizational identity is a green resource that promotes enterprises to establish sustainable competitive advantages and cannot be imitated [14]. In environmental management, organizational members need to establish a common concept of interconnectedness with organizations, teams, and individuals [17]. Green organization identity helps members to clearly understand the connection between the goals and actions of the organizational green innovation and builds a shared interpretation model on the basis of understanding and excavating the profound meaning of superficial behavior [21]. However, existing research has not placed green organizational identity in the overall research framework of corporate green innovation behavior and has not formed a relatively complete organizational identity model in the field of environmental management. Hence, it is of great significance to explore how GOI can help Chinese enterprises to gain GCA.


## 2.2. Green Ambidexterity Innovation

Green innovation is the organic integration of green development, ecological environment concept, and innovation theory under the background of sustainable development. The goal of green innovation is the unity of economic, social, and environmental benefits. In this article, green innovation is defined as all innovative behaviors that can improve environmental performance and sustainable competitive advantage with the goal of sustainable development of enterprises and the purpose of green development concept, including innovation activities that consider the negative impact of enterprises’ operation on the environment in terms of technology, products, services, and markets. Based on “ambidexterity innovation,” this study divides green innovation into two dimensions: green exploitative innovation (GEI) and green exploratory innovation (GER). According to Li et al. [25], green innovation is a process of green knowledge creation, application, and transfer, which is the innovation process of spiral evolution of enterprises from exploitative innovation to exploratory innovation and then from exploratory innovation to exploitative innovation.As the growing importance of green innovation, many studies have tried to explore the antecedents of green innovation [1, 14]. These antecedents can be roughly divided into two categories: external contextual factors and internal organizational factors. The former category mainly includes market demand, environmental regulations, and pressure from other stakeholders, and the latter involves corporate environmental ethics, environmental leadership, corporate culture, and corporate capabilities [14, 21].In the existing literature, only a few research studies have explored the internal organizational factors affecting green innovation. Therefore, this article will try to explore the impact of GOI on corporate green ambidexterity innovation and competitive advantage from inherent angle of enterprises.


## 2.3. Organizational Flexibility (OF)

Organizational flexibility (OF) is the adaptability, changeability, and response capability of an enterprise to cope with an uncertain environment. However, flexibility is a broad and ambiguous concept, which is often considered to be difficult to capture [26]. As a multidimensional concept, OF can be described by dividing it into several dimensions. Volberda [27] has categorized flexibility into operational flexibility, structural flexibility, and strategic flexibility. Other dimensions such as leadership flexibility and technological flexibility have also been discussed. Firms’ potential primarily depends on intrinsic flexibility of their resources and their ability to coordinate the use of those resources to achieve strategic goals [28], so the paper divided organizational flexibility into resource flexibility (RF) and capability flexibility (CF) according to Sanchez [24]. The essence of RF is to expand the applicable scope of resources to increase the choice of enterprises when the environment changes, which supports enterprises to change their business strategies at a lower cost [26]. CF refers to the discovery of new resources and the integration of existing resources in an exploratory way in the process of coping with environmental changes. It is essentially reflected in the identification and grasp of opportunities by enterprises.As the environment becomes more uncertain, most scholars have paid more attention to the role of OF. It is considered to be a mandatory requirement for innovation and the most vital source of corporate competitive advantage [27]. However, the existing studies have not explored that whether OF as a moderator variable can affect the relationship between green ambidexterity innovation and corporate GCA. Therefore, the main aim of our study is to explore the heterogeneity of the relationships between green ambidexterity innovation and GCA under different levels of OF.


## 3. Hypotheses Development and Theoretical Model

### 3.1. Green Organizational Identity (GOI) and Green Competitive Advantage (GCA)

Organizational identity originates from social identity and cultural identity, and refers to the self-definition of individuals in organization, which produces consistency in values and emotional belonging [24]. Competitive advantage is defined as an ability of the enterprise to implement a value creation strategy that other existing and potential competitors have not adopted [29]. The enterprise that integrates its interests and profits into the process of creating environmental value and consumers can form a market advantage that competitors can hardly imitate, and then gains a green competitive advantage [30]. Ashforth and Mael [31] found that organizational identity has a significant influence on organizational members’ attitude and behavior. The higher the members’ organizational identity is, the more willingly to cooperate with others and more likely to achieve higher organization competitiveness. When the development of enterprises is faced with the dual pressures of economic effects and environmental protection, organizational identity will inevitably be integrated into the concept of green development. In environmental management, organization members need to establish a common concept of interconnection with organizations, teams, and individuals. GOI helps members to clearly understand the relationship between environmental protection and goals of the organization, and constructs a shared interpretation model on the basis of understanding and excavating the profound meaning of behaviors. According to the existing literature, GOI can improve the capability to solve environmental issues and enhance the organization’s green adaptive ability [19]. Strengthening GOI will significantly affect cooperation within the enterprise, which can motivate the members of the organization to seek solutions for green development and improve the ability of the enterprise to deal with environmental regulations and laws. In addition, GOI can also help organization better integrate green human capital and at the same time cultivate its relevant ability to realize environmental goals [21]. The organizational identity model about green innovation and environmental management jointly established by the members of the organization [14], that is, GOI, can enhance consistency within the organization and cultivate employees’ sense of value, belonging, and control of green environmental protection, which will push employees be more active in cooperating with others and improving their skills autonomously. All of these are conducive to gain competitive advantage for enterprises.At the strategic level, green organization identity is helpful for organizations to propose environmental strategic and form environmental cognition. Green cognition and value are deeply embedded in meaningful cultural systems and become organizational heterogeneity and sticky resources, which are valuable and scarce and cannot be completely imitated and replaced. The acquisition of green competitive advantage depends on these strategic resources. Therefore, green organization identity is a key resource that cannot be imitated by competitors easily and can enable members in the organization to clarify the interactive relationship between environmental protection goals and enterprise behaviors. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:Hypothesis 1: GOI has a positive effect on gaining GCA.


### 3.2. Green Organization Identity (GOI) and Green Ambidexterity Innovation

Based on the organizational identity theory, organizational identity affects the behavior of employees. Organizational identity can promote self-concept to the level of group, help to cultivate employees’ sense of value, make employees clear their work expectations, and promote the generation and stimulation of innovation [21]. Sethi [32] expressed that organizational identity would positively improve innovation performance in the formative process of innovation. The cognitive model based on environmental values is conducive to the effective implementation of green innovation, and GOI will actively affect the environmental protection behavior of enterprises [21]. At the same time, GOI can motivate members to seek solutions in the process of green innovation and strengthen their understanding of green ambidexterity innovation [33]. Through combining the different knowledge structures inside the organization, the integration of organizational identity within an enterprise can promote innovation [32]. On the one hand, in order to meet the needs of customers for environmental protection, enterprises carry out GEI achieved by continuous small-scale green innovation through functional expansion or technological improvement of existing products. On the other hand, GOI can motivate the initiative green-oriented behavior of employees and push them to exert greater efforts on generating new knowledge and ideas, creatively participating in developing new products and services, meeting the needs of potential customers in environmental protection, and also promoting the harmonious development of economy and environment within the enterprise [33]. In conclusion, the following hypotheses are proposed:Hypothesis 2: GOI has a positive effect on green ambidexterity innovation.Hypothesis 2a: GOI has a positive effect on GEI.Hypothesis 2b: GOI has a positive effect on GER.


### 3.3. Green Ambidexterity Innovation and Green Competitive Advantage (GCA)

According to the New Schumpeter Growth Theory, innovation can break through the original resource constraints and make enterprises realize qualitative changes, which is the main source and foundation for sustainable development of enterprises. Green innovation integrates the concept of environmental protection and green development into innovation activities. Raza [34] confirmed that green innovation improves the economic and environmental performance of firms in Japan and Europe, respectively. Yan and Zhang [35] also found that green innovation can promote the improvement of enterprises’ environmental performance. High performance is one of the indicators for enterprises to gain competitive advantage. Meanwhile, green innovation essentially establishes a heterogeneous green resource system within enterprises, which is conducive to preventing other competitors from imitating and ensuring the leading position in the market [30]. In addition, green innovation helps enterprises to discover new markets and investment opportunities, resulting in lower costs and increased profits, so enterprises can adopt green innovation strategies to gain a competitive advantage [33].As an innovation model that aims at balancing corporate development and environmental protection, exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation, as the prominent characteristics of ambidextrous organizations are the key elements for organizations to obtain and maintain competitive advantage [30]. As GEI is an improvement on the existing green technology, enterprises can effectively reduce the R&D cost and risk of innovation, which accelerates the speed of innovation and obtains the market-leading advantages. At the same time, the higher the degree of GEI of enterprise, the more frequently it will improve the existing green technology, which makes the improved green products keep advantages in efficiency and benefit [33]. Compared to GEI, GER can continuously improve the resource productivity of enterprises through new green design, green production, and green operations, and then obtain the premium benefits brought by green products. It can also offset or surpass the costs caused by improving the environment, thereby bringing the technical compensation effect to the enterprise and gain a new competitive advantage [35]. More importantly, as a drastic type of innovation, GER may relatively bear greater risks. The new technology pursued by exploratory green innovation, however, will make enterprises in the leading position and seize the opportunity to set green standards for the industry. All in all, GER is conducive to establishing a green image via developing new technology and providing new green products or services, forming green barriers that make it difficult for competitors to imitate in a short period, and bringing time-leading and differentiated competitive advantages to the enterprise [34]. Therefore, both GEI and GER can make enterprises break through the bottleneck of development and bring GCA to enterprises. To sum up, the following assumptions are proposed:Hypothesis 3: Green ambidexterity innovation plays a positive role in gaining GCA for enterprises.Hypothesis 3a: GEI has a positive effect on the GCA of enterprises.Hypothesis 3b: GER has a positive effect on the GCA of enterprises.


### 3.4. The Mediating Role of GEI and GER

As environmental regulations and consumers’ environmental awareness are further strengthened, organizations take initiatives to solve the environmental issues and put more emphasis on enterprise environmental management [21]. Organizational identity can finally affect the employees’ behavior by shaping the organization’s strategies and actions [36]. Research has shown that GOI positively affects green innovation performance. GOI can reach a common understanding of how to solve environmental problems by establishing a common interpretation mode of environmental protection within the enterprise. Employees with high GOI can perceive and ponder on environmental problems actively as well as be aware of the importance of environmental protection for enterprises to gain GCA. According to the natural-resource-based view, green innovation, as a unique resource and capability of enterprises, can obtain GCA through resource conservation and environmental improvement [36]. Encouraged by GOI, members are bound to take exploration innovation behaviors such as creating new products or service, developing new technology in order to meet the environmental protection needs of potential customers in emerging markets; they will also actively engage in exploitative innovation behaviors like expanding existing functions and making improvements to existing product and technology to meet the environmental protection needs of customers and improve the green image of enterprises in existing markets [21]. Therefore, the formation of the members’ environmental cognition and corporate environmental strategy are conducive to the organization green innovation and then can help the enterprise gain GCA [14]. In line with these results, the authors hypothesize the following:Hypothesis 4: Green innovation plays an intermediary role between GOI and GCA.Hypothesis 4a: GEI plays an intermediary role between GOI and GCA.Hypothesis 4b: GER plays an intermediary role between GOI and GCA.


### 3.5. The Moderating Role of Organizational Flexibility (OF)

GEI and GER follow different technical trajectories and operating modes, which will compete with each other for scarce resources of enterprises [37]. It is always uncertain whether green ambidexterity innovation can help enterprises obtain a competitive advantage. Volberda [27] pointed out that a successful innovation process relies both on the firm’s ability to exploit its resources and on its ability to explore new dynamic capabilities. They then confirmed the positive relationship between firms’ flexibility and their innovation capability through the empirical research in Europe. OF is helpful for enterprises to effectively reallocate green resources, reduce the risk of green innovation activities, improve the possibility of success of green innovation in a dynamic competitive environment, and then gain GCA.(1)
The moderation effect of RF. In a mature market, in order to meet the market demand, enterprises should implement exploitative green innovation to expand the functions of existing products or make technological improvements. GEI is essentially an improvement activity based on the existing knowledge, products, technology, and so on. With the enhancement of resource flexibility and the diversification of ways to achieve enterprise value, the uncertainty of the internal and external environment can be dealt with through minor adjustments [29]. It means that if there is a shortage of a resource in the process of GEI, other similar resources can be quickly used to ensure the continuity of the innovation process. At the same time, it can also shorten the conversion time of adopting the same resource to produce different products and services, that is, launch new products at a faster speed and put new products into the market as soon as possible to seize market opportunities, thus forming a GCA for enterprises.In order to meet the needs of potential customers in emerging markets to a GCA that is difficult to be surpassed and imitated by competitors in a short period of time [37], enterprises need to engage in GER to develop new products or services. On the one hand, pursuing those opportunities with innovative products requires quick and effective R&D processes, which requires a high flexibility [3]. On the other hand, in the process of GER, those resources with exclusivity and specificity can achieve higher utilization efficiency and value contribution, but the flexibility of such resources is often lower [24]. The resources with lower flexibility will have stronger exclusivity and specificity, which is more conducive to GER. With the improvement of RF, the specificity of resources will decrease. In the mutually restricted relationship between flexibility and efficiency, the efficiency of the versatile resources is not as good as those that are used for only one purpose, which is not conducive for enterprises to gain a GCA through GER. To sum up, the following assumptions are proposed:Hypothesis 5a: RF has a positive moderating effect between GEI and GCA.Hypothesis 5b: RF has a negative moderating effect between GER and GCA.(2)
The moderation effect of CF. The improvement of CF can help enterprises quickly adapt to the changes in the external environment in the process of GEI. The dynamic ability to efficiently reconfigure the existing resources can help enterprise to continuously adapt to the changes of customer needs, effectively reduce the uncertainty in the process of GEI, and gain a GCA [33].However, the moderating effect of CF between GER and GCA is different. If the CF improved, enterprises can carry out GER through new ways or new resources [38]. Meanwhile, in the process of enhancing CF, it is likely to exceed the increase in benefits brought by it and fall into the danger of “flexibility trap” [37]. Moreover, blindly pursuing the improvement of CF will lead enterprises to ignore the traditional normative management methods and lead to great risks in the process of GER, making the GCA of enterprises decline instead of rising. Based on the above discussion, we postulate thatHypothesis 5c: CF has a positive moderating effect between GEI and GCA.Hypothesis 5d: CF has a negative moderating effect between GER and GCA.To sum up, the theoretical model of the article is shown in Figure1.Figure 1
Hypothesized theoretical model.


## 3.1. Green Organizational Identity (GOI) and Green Competitive Advantage (GCA)

Organizational identity originates from social identity and cultural identity, and refers to the self-definition of individuals in organization, which produces consistency in values and emotional belonging [24]. Competitive advantage is defined as an ability of the enterprise to implement a value creation strategy that other existing and potential competitors have not adopted [29]. The enterprise that integrates its interests and profits into the process of creating environmental value and consumers can form a market advantage that competitors can hardly imitate, and then gains a green competitive advantage [30]. Ashforth and Mael [31] found that organizational identity has a significant influence on organizational members’ attitude and behavior. The higher the members’ organizational identity is, the more willingly to cooperate with others and more likely to achieve higher organization competitiveness. When the development of enterprises is faced with the dual pressures of economic effects and environmental protection, organizational identity will inevitably be integrated into the concept of green development. In environmental management, organization members need to establish a common concept of interconnection with organizations, teams, and individuals. GOI helps members to clearly understand the relationship between environmental protection and goals of the organization, and constructs a shared interpretation model on the basis of understanding and excavating the profound meaning of behaviors. According to the existing literature, GOI can improve the capability to solve environmental issues and enhance the organization’s green adaptive ability [19]. Strengthening GOI will significantly affect cooperation within the enterprise, which can motivate the members of the organization to seek solutions for green development and improve the ability of the enterprise to deal with environmental regulations and laws. In addition, GOI can also help organization better integrate green human capital and at the same time cultivate its relevant ability to realize environmental goals [21]. The organizational identity model about green innovation and environmental management jointly established by the members of the organization [14], that is, GOI, can enhance consistency within the organization and cultivate employees’ sense of value, belonging, and control of green environmental protection, which will push employees be more active in cooperating with others and improving their skills autonomously. All of these are conducive to gain competitive advantage for enterprises.At the strategic level, green organization identity is helpful for organizations to propose environmental strategic and form environmental cognition. Green cognition and value are deeply embedded in meaningful cultural systems and become organizational heterogeneity and sticky resources, which are valuable and scarce and cannot be completely imitated and replaced. The acquisition of green competitive advantage depends on these strategic resources. Therefore, green organization identity is a key resource that cannot be imitated by competitors easily and can enable members in the organization to clarify the interactive relationship between environmental protection goals and enterprise behaviors. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:Hypothesis 1: GOI has a positive effect on gaining GCA.


## 3.2. Green Organization Identity (GOI) and Green Ambidexterity Innovation

Based on the organizational identity theory, organizational identity affects the behavior of employees. Organizational identity can promote self-concept to the level of group, help to cultivate employees’ sense of value, make employees clear their work expectations, and promote the generation and stimulation of innovation [21]. Sethi [32] expressed that organizational identity would positively improve innovation performance in the formative process of innovation. The cognitive model based on environmental values is conducive to the effective implementation of green innovation, and GOI will actively affect the environmental protection behavior of enterprises [21]. At the same time, GOI can motivate members to seek solutions in the process of green innovation and strengthen their understanding of green ambidexterity innovation [33]. Through combining the different knowledge structures inside the organization, the integration of organizational identity within an enterprise can promote innovation [32]. On the one hand, in order to meet the needs of customers for environmental protection, enterprises carry out GEI achieved by continuous small-scale green innovation through functional expansion or technological improvement of existing products. On the other hand, GOI can motivate the initiative green-oriented behavior of employees and push them to exert greater efforts on generating new knowledge and ideas, creatively participating in developing new products and services, meeting the needs of potential customers in environmental protection, and also promoting the harmonious development of economy and environment within the enterprise [33]. In conclusion, the following hypotheses are proposed:Hypothesis 2: GOI has a positive effect on green ambidexterity innovation.Hypothesis 2a: GOI has a positive effect on GEI.Hypothesis 2b: GOI has a positive effect on GER.


## 3.3. Green Ambidexterity Innovation and Green Competitive Advantage (GCA)

According to the New Schumpeter Growth Theory, innovation can break through the original resource constraints and make enterprises realize qualitative changes, which is the main source and foundation for sustainable development of enterprises. Green innovation integrates the concept of environmental protection and green development into innovation activities. Raza [34] confirmed that green innovation improves the economic and environmental performance of firms in Japan and Europe, respectively. Yan and Zhang [35] also found that green innovation can promote the improvement of enterprises’ environmental performance. High performance is one of the indicators for enterprises to gain competitive advantage. Meanwhile, green innovation essentially establishes a heterogeneous green resource system within enterprises, which is conducive to preventing other competitors from imitating and ensuring the leading position in the market [30]. In addition, green innovation helps enterprises to discover new markets and investment opportunities, resulting in lower costs and increased profits, so enterprises can adopt green innovation strategies to gain a competitive advantage [33].As an innovation model that aims at balancing corporate development and environmental protection, exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation, as the prominent characteristics of ambidextrous organizations are the key elements for organizations to obtain and maintain competitive advantage [30]. As GEI is an improvement on the existing green technology, enterprises can effectively reduce the R&D cost and risk of innovation, which accelerates the speed of innovation and obtains the market-leading advantages. At the same time, the higher the degree of GEI of enterprise, the more frequently it will improve the existing green technology, which makes the improved green products keep advantages in efficiency and benefit [33]. Compared to GEI, GER can continuously improve the resource productivity of enterprises through new green design, green production, and green operations, and then obtain the premium benefits brought by green products. It can also offset or surpass the costs caused by improving the environment, thereby bringing the technical compensation effect to the enterprise and gain a new competitive advantage [35]. More importantly, as a drastic type of innovation, GER may relatively bear greater risks. The new technology pursued by exploratory green innovation, however, will make enterprises in the leading position and seize the opportunity to set green standards for the industry. All in all, GER is conducive to establishing a green image via developing new technology and providing new green products or services, forming green barriers that make it difficult for competitors to imitate in a short period, and bringing time-leading and differentiated competitive advantages to the enterprise [34]. Therefore, both GEI and GER can make enterprises break through the bottleneck of development and bring GCA to enterprises. To sum up, the following assumptions are proposed:Hypothesis 3: Green ambidexterity innovation plays a positive role in gaining GCA for enterprises.Hypothesis 3a: GEI has a positive effect on the GCA of enterprises.Hypothesis 3b: GER has a positive effect on the GCA of enterprises.


## 3.4. The Mediating Role of GEI and GER

As environmental regulations and consumers’ environmental awareness are further strengthened, organizations take initiatives to solve the environmental issues and put more emphasis on enterprise environmental management [21]. Organizational identity can finally affect the employees’ behavior by shaping the organization’s strategies and actions [36]. Research has shown that GOI positively affects green innovation performance. GOI can reach a common understanding of how to solve environmental problems by establishing a common interpretation mode of environmental protection within the enterprise. Employees with high GOI can perceive and ponder on environmental problems actively as well as be aware of the importance of environmental protection for enterprises to gain GCA. According to the natural-resource-based view, green innovation, as a unique resource and capability of enterprises, can obtain GCA through resource conservation and environmental improvement [36]. Encouraged by GOI, members are bound to take exploration innovation behaviors such as creating new products or service, developing new technology in order to meet the environmental protection needs of potential customers in emerging markets; they will also actively engage in exploitative innovation behaviors like expanding existing functions and making improvements to existing product and technology to meet the environmental protection needs of customers and improve the green image of enterprises in existing markets [21]. Therefore, the formation of the members’ environmental cognition and corporate environmental strategy are conducive to the organization green innovation and then can help the enterprise gain GCA [14]. In line with these results, the authors hypothesize the following:Hypothesis 4: Green innovation plays an intermediary role between GOI and GCA.Hypothesis 4a: GEI plays an intermediary role between GOI and GCA.Hypothesis 4b: GER plays an intermediary role between GOI and GCA.


## 3.5. The Moderating Role of Organizational Flexibility (OF)

GEI and GER follow different technical trajectories and operating modes, which will compete with each other for scarce resources of enterprises [37]. It is always uncertain whether green ambidexterity innovation can help enterprises obtain a competitive advantage. Volberda [27] pointed out that a successful innovation process relies both on the firm’s ability to exploit its resources and on its ability to explore new dynamic capabilities. They then confirmed the positive relationship between firms’ flexibility and their innovation capability through the empirical research in Europe. OF is helpful for enterprises to effectively reallocate green resources, reduce the risk of green innovation activities, improve the possibility of success of green innovation in a dynamic competitive environment, and then gain GCA.(1)
The moderation effect of RF. In a mature market, in order to meet the market demand, enterprises should implement exploitative green innovation to expand the functions of existing products or make technological improvements. GEI is essentially an improvement activity based on the existing knowledge, products, technology, and so on. With the enhancement of resource flexibility and the diversification of ways to achieve enterprise value, the uncertainty of the internal and external environment can be dealt with through minor adjustments [29]. It means that if there is a shortage of a resource in the process of GEI, other similar resources can be quickly used to ensure the continuity of the innovation process. At the same time, it can also shorten the conversion time of adopting the same resource to produce different products and services, that is, launch new products at a faster speed and put new products into the market as soon as possible to seize market opportunities, thus forming a GCA for enterprises.In order to meet the needs of potential customers in emerging markets to a GCA that is difficult to be surpassed and imitated by competitors in a short period of time [37], enterprises need to engage in GER to develop new products or services. On the one hand, pursuing those opportunities with innovative products requires quick and effective R&D processes, which requires a high flexibility [3]. On the other hand, in the process of GER, those resources with exclusivity and specificity can achieve higher utilization efficiency and value contribution, but the flexibility of such resources is often lower [24]. The resources with lower flexibility will have stronger exclusivity and specificity, which is more conducive to GER. With the improvement of RF, the specificity of resources will decrease. In the mutually restricted relationship between flexibility and efficiency, the efficiency of the versatile resources is not as good as those that are used for only one purpose, which is not conducive for enterprises to gain a GCA through GER. To sum up, the following assumptions are proposed:Hypothesis 5a: RF has a positive moderating effect between GEI and GCA.Hypothesis 5b: RF has a negative moderating effect between GER and GCA.(2)
The moderation effect of CF. The improvement of CF can help enterprises quickly adapt to the changes in the external environment in the process of GEI. The dynamic ability to efficiently reconfigure the existing resources can help enterprise to continuously adapt to the changes of customer needs, effectively reduce the uncertainty in the process of GEI, and gain a GCA [33].However, the moderating effect of CF between GER and GCA is different. If the CF improved, enterprises can carry out GER through new ways or new resources [38]. Meanwhile, in the process of enhancing CF, it is likely to exceed the increase in benefits brought by it and fall into the danger of “flexibility trap” [37]. Moreover, blindly pursuing the improvement of CF will lead enterprises to ignore the traditional normative management methods and lead to great risks in the process of GER, making the GCA of enterprises decline instead of rising. Based on the above discussion, we postulate thatHypothesis 5c: CF has a positive moderating effect between GEI and GCA.Hypothesis 5d: CF has a negative moderating effect between GER and GCA.To sum up, the theoretical model of the article is shown in Figure1.Figure 1
Hypothesized theoretical model.


## 4. Methodology

### 4.1. Data Collection and Sample

We use questionnaires to investigate coal, chemical, steel, brewing, pharmacy, metallurgy, and thermal power industries in central China, such as Shanxi, Shandong, Inner Mongolia, and Shaanxi provinces, and test our hypothesis by collecting survey data of heavily polluting enterprises, such as Sansheng Group, Sanwei Group, Luan Group, and Baoji Qinyuan Coal Industry Company. The heavy polluting enterprises in these regions were selected mainly for two reasons: (1) driven by the concept of high-quality development of China’s ecological environment, most of the enterprises in heavy polluting industries are facing the dual tasks of resource-based economic transformation and ecological environmental protection, which is more likely to stimulate member’s green identity and green innovation activities of enterprises; and (2) enterprises in polluting industries have higher enthusiasm for green development due to the greater environmental pressure from government, shareholders, communities, and other stakeholders, which is consistent with our research.Survey data were obtained through two rounds of large-scale questionnaire surveys from July 2019 to January 2021. Firstly, we took the middle and top managers in coal, metallurgy, electricity, and brewing enterprises in Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Inner Mongolia, as the respondents of the questionnaires. Secondly, representative coal enterprises and its related higher and lower firms were selected from provinces rich in coal resources in China, such as Shanxi, Shaanxi, Liaoning, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, and Guizhou. The members of the investigation group went to each place to distribute the paper questionnaires on-site and guide the respondents to fill out. In this stage, a total of 205 copies were received. Thirdly, in order to ensure the randomness, effectiveness, and universality of the questionnaire, volunteers were recruited from MBA and EMBA students to conduct the survey in the firms in which they worked. A total of 165 useable questionnaires were received from the middle and top managers responsible for green innovation and environmental management in the enterprises. These enterprises are mainly from medicine, petroleum, chemical raw materials, and chemical industries.A total of 370 questionnaires were received, among which 29 invalid questionnaires with incomplete contents or missing answers to key variables were removed. Finally, 341 valid questionnaires remained resulting in an effective rate of 54.28%. The industries of these enterprises are distributed as follows: 86 coal enterprises (25.2%), 43 brewing enterprises (12.6%), 78 pharmaceutical, chemical raw materials and chemicals enterprises (22.8%), 45 petroleum processing, coking, rubber, and plastic manufacturing enterprises (13.4%), and 89 other manufacturing enterprises (26%).


### 4.2. Questionnaire and Measures

This study employed Likert’s 5-point scale, with 1 indicating “completely inconsistent” and 5 indicating “completely consistent.” In order to improve the quality of the questionnaire and ensure the good structure and content validity of the scale, we have extensively studied the relevant literature on green organizational identity, green innovation, organizational flexibility, and competitive advantage and used the mature scale of scholars in this research field to determine the variables and items of the questionnaire. On the basis of in-depth interviews with enterprises, we consulted experts in the field of green innovation. At the same time, according to the theoretical model, the subjects of the questionnaire determined the dimensions and specific items of variables such as green organizational identity, green ambidexterity innovation, green competitive advantage, and organizational flexibility (as shown in the Appendix). In addition, since the subjects of the study were Chinese, we used the back-translation method to translate the original English items into Chinese and made some reasonable modifications on the items according to the specific situation in China. After refining and revising the items of the tested variables by some experts, and protest through multiple rounds of interviews with managers, the questionnaire in Chinese was distributed among respondents. All variables are analyzed in this article. The mean distribution of each item of the variable is between 3.510 and 3.760, the absolute value of skewness is less than 1, and the absolute value of kurtosis is less than 7. According to the criteria of Baron and Kenny [39], the variables were normally distributed and all variables could be adopted.SPSS26.0 was used to test the reliability of each variable. Generally speaking, the more consistent the results of each test, the smaller the error, the higher the reliability, and the larger theα [40]. According to the criteria of Hair et al. [41], the corrected item total correlation is greater than 0.5. As shown in Table 1, the CITC of each item of the six variables in this study was above 0.50. According to the standard put forward by Wu [42], the reliability coefficient should be above 0.80 before it is acceptable. In Table 1, the Cronbach’s coefficient of each variable scale is above 0.80, which shows that the reliability of this article is good. AMOS 26.0 was used for confirmatory variable analysis. Hair et al. [41] pointed out that in exploratory factor analysis, only when the variable loading values are all greater than 0.6, the contribution rate of variance of the first factor of each variable is >60%, KMO is > 0.70, and the statistical value of Bartlett’s spherical test is significant <0.05, can the results all reach the adaptation standard. In confirmatory variable analysis, each path was significant at the level of p < 0.001; χ2/df less than 3; GFI greater than 0.90; AGFI greater than 0.90; and RMSEA less than 0.08 to meet the standard [43]. According to the data in Table 2, all the measurement results meet the standard, which shows that the model fits well and has good structure validity.Table 1
The validity analysis.
VariablesVariance contribution rate of first variable (%)KMOBartlett spherical testApproximate chi-squaredfSigGOI73.9220.831610.81560.000GEI73.1850.882915.487100.000GER75.3510.8951001.993100.000GCA75.7270.9291354.600150.000RF82.1680.856903.19260.000CF83.6630.862970.26460.000Table 2
The confirmatory variable analysis.
Variablesχ2/dfGFIAGFIRMSEAGOI1.4680.9950.9750.040GEI2.7810.9820.9450.079GER0.8900.9940.9810.000GCA1.0930.9890.9740.018RF1.8630.9930.9670.055CF1.6060.9940.9710.046


#### 4.2.1. Dependent Variable

Green competitive advantage (GCA) was measured by six items according to the research of Chen [14], Tian and Chen [37]. One example item was “Compared with the main competitors, your company has a low-cost competitive advantage in environmental protection.” The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the scale was 0.935, and the results of the confirmatory factor analysis show that the index were χ2/df = 1.093, GFI = 0.989, AGFI = 0.974, NFI = 0.972, CFI = 1, IFI = 1, and RMSEA = 0.018.


#### 4.2.2. Independent Variable

According to previous studies [14, 30], green organizational identity (GOI) refers to “an organizational identity model of environmental management and protection jointly established by the members of the organization in order to give their behaviors meaning.” It is a concept involving multiple levels, so the identity of members at different levels within the organization should be set into the problems of measuring the variable. This study draws on the research of Chen [14], Gioia and Thomas [40], Pan and Tian [33] to measure GOI, using 4 items. One example item was “The top managers, middle managers and employees of your company have a strong sense of responsibility for their environmental goals.” The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the scale was 0.882, and the fitness index of the confirmatory factor analysis results were: χ2/df = 1.468, GFI = 0.995, AGFI = 0.975, NFI = 0.971, CFI = 0.986, IFI = 0.998, and RMSEA = 0.040.


#### 4.2.3. Mediating Variables

Green innovation is divided into two dimensions: green exploitative innovation (GEI) and green exploratory innovation (GER). This study draws on the ways of the studies of Xu and Li [42], Zhou and Cao [44] measure green ambidextrous innovation, and each of the two dimensions includes 5 items. One example item for measuring GEI was “Your company can provide improved environmental products and services in the existing market”; another example item for measuring GER was “Your company periodically explores new customer groups.” The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the GEI was 0.907, and the adaptability index were: χ2/df = 2.781, GFI = 0.982, AGFI = 0.945, NFI = 0.961, CFI = 0.975, IFI = 0.968, and RMSEA = 0.079. The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the GER was 0.918, and the adaptability index were: χ2/df = 0.890, GFI = 0.994, AGFI = 0.991, CFI = 0.986, IFI = 0.998, and RMSEA = 0.000.


#### 4.2.4. Moderating Variables

Organizational flexibility (OF) includes two dimensions: resource flexibility (RF) and capability flexibility (CF). This study refers to the research of Su [38] to measure OF. Each dimension contains four items. One example item for measuring RF was “The resources of your company have a wide area of applications”; another example item for measuring CF was “Your company often finds new uses and new combinations of existing resources within the company.” The Cronbach’s α coefficient of RF was 0.928, and the adaptability index of the confirmatory factor analysis results were: χ2/df = 1.863, GFI = 0.993, AGFI = 0.967, NFI = 0.971, CFI = 0.986, IFI = 0.981, and RMSEA = 0.055. The Cronbach’s α coefficient of CF was 0.934, and the adaptability index were: χ2/df = 1.606, GFI = 0.994, AGFI = 0.967, NFI = 0.971, CFI = 0.982, IFI = 0.993, and RMSEA = 0.046.


#### 4.2.5. Control Variables

Based on the previous research, firm age, size, ownership, and the industry it is involved in will all affect the green innovation of a firm [14]. In order to ensure the model proposed in this study is robust, all of these variables were added to the model as the control variables. In addition, the independent variable of this study is GOI, and the value identity of green innovation needs to be formed at all levels within the enterprise. Therefore, this study also regards employee position as a control variable. Firm age was measured by the years it existed since the company was founded. Firm size was measured by the number of employees in the firm. The ownership and the industry of each company were controlled by employing dummy variables. Finally, employee position was also controlled by using dummy variables, which includes four dummy indicators: ordinary employee, first-line manager, middle manager, and senior manager.


## 4.1. Data Collection and Sample

We use questionnaires to investigate coal, chemical, steel, brewing, pharmacy, metallurgy, and thermal power industries in central China, such as Shanxi, Shandong, Inner Mongolia, and Shaanxi provinces, and test our hypothesis by collecting survey data of heavily polluting enterprises, such as Sansheng Group, Sanwei Group, Luan Group, and Baoji Qinyuan Coal Industry Company. The heavy polluting enterprises in these regions were selected mainly for two reasons: (1) driven by the concept of high-quality development of China’s ecological environment, most of the enterprises in heavy polluting industries are facing the dual tasks of resource-based economic transformation and ecological environmental protection, which is more likely to stimulate member’s green identity and green innovation activities of enterprises; and (2) enterprises in polluting industries have higher enthusiasm for green development due to the greater environmental pressure from government, shareholders, communities, and other stakeholders, which is consistent with our research.Survey data were obtained through two rounds of large-scale questionnaire surveys from July 2019 to January 2021. Firstly, we took the middle and top managers in coal, metallurgy, electricity, and brewing enterprises in Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Inner Mongolia, as the respondents of the questionnaires. Secondly, representative coal enterprises and its related higher and lower firms were selected from provinces rich in coal resources in China, such as Shanxi, Shaanxi, Liaoning, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, and Guizhou. The members of the investigation group went to each place to distribute the paper questionnaires on-site and guide the respondents to fill out. In this stage, a total of 205 copies were received. Thirdly, in order to ensure the randomness, effectiveness, and universality of the questionnaire, volunteers were recruited from MBA and EMBA students to conduct the survey in the firms in which they worked. A total of 165 useable questionnaires were received from the middle and top managers responsible for green innovation and environmental management in the enterprises. These enterprises are mainly from medicine, petroleum, chemical raw materials, and chemical industries.A total of 370 questionnaires were received, among which 29 invalid questionnaires with incomplete contents or missing answers to key variables were removed. Finally, 341 valid questionnaires remained resulting in an effective rate of 54.28%. The industries of these enterprises are distributed as follows: 86 coal enterprises (25.2%), 43 brewing enterprises (12.6%), 78 pharmaceutical, chemical raw materials and chemicals enterprises (22.8%), 45 petroleum processing, coking, rubber, and plastic manufacturing enterprises (13.4%), and 89 other manufacturing enterprises (26%).


## 4.2. Questionnaire and Measures

This study employed Likert’s 5-point scale, with 1 indicating “completely inconsistent” and 5 indicating “completely consistent.” In order to improve the quality of the questionnaire and ensure the good structure and content validity of the scale, we have extensively studied the relevant literature on green organizational identity, green innovation, organizational flexibility, and competitive advantage and used the mature scale of scholars in this research field to determine the variables and items of the questionnaire. On the basis of in-depth interviews with enterprises, we consulted experts in the field of green innovation. At the same time, according to the theoretical model, the subjects of the questionnaire determined the dimensions and specific items of variables such as green organizational identity, green ambidexterity innovation, green competitive advantage, and organizational flexibility (as shown in the Appendix). In addition, since the subjects of the study were Chinese, we used the back-translation method to translate the original English items into Chinese and made some reasonable modifications on the items according to the specific situation in China. After refining and revising the items of the tested variables by some experts, and protest through multiple rounds of interviews with managers, the questionnaire in Chinese was distributed among respondents. All variables are analyzed in this article. The mean distribution of each item of the variable is between 3.510 and 3.760, the absolute value of skewness is less than 1, and the absolute value of kurtosis is less than 7. According to the criteria of Baron and Kenny [39], the variables were normally distributed and all variables could be adopted.SPSS26.0 was used to test the reliability of each variable. Generally speaking, the more consistent the results of each test, the smaller the error, the higher the reliability, and the larger theα [40]. According to the criteria of Hair et al. [41], the corrected item total correlation is greater than 0.5. As shown in Table 1, the CITC of each item of the six variables in this study was above 0.50. According to the standard put forward by Wu [42], the reliability coefficient should be above 0.80 before it is acceptable. In Table 1, the Cronbach’s coefficient of each variable scale is above 0.80, which shows that the reliability of this article is good. AMOS 26.0 was used for confirmatory variable analysis. Hair et al. [41] pointed out that in exploratory factor analysis, only when the variable loading values are all greater than 0.6, the contribution rate of variance of the first factor of each variable is >60%, KMO is > 0.70, and the statistical value of Bartlett’s spherical test is significant <0.05, can the results all reach the adaptation standard. In confirmatory variable analysis, each path was significant at the level of p < 0.001; χ2/df less than 3; GFI greater than 0.90; AGFI greater than 0.90; and RMSEA less than 0.08 to meet the standard [43]. According to the data in Table 2, all the measurement results meet the standard, which shows that the model fits well and has good structure validity.Table 1
The validity analysis.
VariablesVariance contribution rate of first variable (%)KMOBartlett spherical testApproximate chi-squaredfSigGOI73.9220.831610.81560.000GEI73.1850.882915.487100.000GER75.3510.8951001.993100.000GCA75.7270.9291354.600150.000RF82.1680.856903.19260.000CF83.6630.862970.26460.000Table 2
The confirmatory variable analysis.
Variablesχ2/dfGFIAGFIRMSEAGOI1.4680.9950.9750.040GEI2.7810.9820.9450.079GER0.8900.9940.9810.000GCA1.0930.9890.9740.018RF1.8630.9930.9670.055CF1.6060.9940.9710.046


### 4.2.1. Dependent Variable

Green competitive advantage (GCA) was measured by six items according to the research of Chen [14], Tian and Chen [37]. One example item was “Compared with the main competitors, your company has a low-cost competitive advantage in environmental protection.” The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the scale was 0.935, and the results of the confirmatory factor analysis show that the index were χ2/df = 1.093, GFI = 0.989, AGFI = 0.974, NFI = 0.972, CFI = 1, IFI = 1, and RMSEA = 0.018.


### 4.2.2. Independent Variable

According to previous studies [14, 30], green organizational identity (GOI) refers to “an organizational identity model of environmental management and protection jointly established by the members of the organization in order to give their behaviors meaning.” It is a concept involving multiple levels, so the identity of members at different levels within the organization should be set into the problems of measuring the variable. This study draws on the research of Chen [14], Gioia and Thomas [40], Pan and Tian [33] to measure GOI, using 4 items. One example item was “The top managers, middle managers and employees of your company have a strong sense of responsibility for their environmental goals.” The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the scale was 0.882, and the fitness index of the confirmatory factor analysis results were: χ2/df = 1.468, GFI = 0.995, AGFI = 0.975, NFI = 0.971, CFI = 0.986, IFI = 0.998, and RMSEA = 0.040.


### 4.2.3. Mediating Variables

Green innovation is divided into two dimensions: green exploitative innovation (GEI) and green exploratory innovation (GER). This study draws on the ways of the studies of Xu and Li [42], Zhou and Cao [44] measure green ambidextrous innovation, and each of the two dimensions includes 5 items. One example item for measuring GEI was “Your company can provide improved environmental products and services in the existing market”; another example item for measuring GER was “Your company periodically explores new customer groups.” The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the GEI was 0.907, and the adaptability index were: χ2/df = 2.781, GFI = 0.982, AGFI = 0.945, NFI = 0.961, CFI = 0.975, IFI = 0.968, and RMSEA = 0.079. The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the GER was 0.918, and the adaptability index were: χ2/df = 0.890, GFI = 0.994, AGFI = 0.991, CFI = 0.986, IFI = 0.998, and RMSEA = 0.000.


### 4.2.4. Moderating Variables

Organizational flexibility (OF) includes two dimensions: resource flexibility (RF) and capability flexibility (CF). This study refers to the research of Su [38] to measure OF. Each dimension contains four items. One example item for measuring RF was “The resources of your company have a wide area of applications”; another example item for measuring CF was “Your company often finds new uses and new combinations of existing resources within the company.” The Cronbach’s α coefficient of RF was 0.928, and the adaptability index of the confirmatory factor analysis results were: χ2/df = 1.863, GFI = 0.993, AGFI = 0.967, NFI = 0.971, CFI = 0.986, IFI = 0.981, and RMSEA = 0.055. The Cronbach’s α coefficient of CF was 0.934, and the adaptability index were: χ2/df = 1.606, GFI = 0.994, AGFI = 0.967, NFI = 0.971, CFI = 0.982, IFI = 0.993, and RMSEA = 0.046.


### 4.2.5. Control Variables

Based on the previous research, firm age, size, ownership, and the industry it is involved in will all affect the green innovation of a firm [14]. In order to ensure the model proposed in this study is robust, all of these variables were added to the model as the control variables. In addition, the independent variable of this study is GOI, and the value identity of green innovation needs to be formed at all levels within the enterprise. Therefore, this study also regards employee position as a control variable. Firm age was measured by the years it existed since the company was founded. Firm size was measured by the number of employees in the firm. The ownership and the industry of each company were controlled by employing dummy variables. Finally, employee position was also controlled by using dummy variables, which includes four dummy indicators: ordinary employee, first-line manager, middle manager, and senior manager.


## 4.2.1. Dependent Variable

Green competitive advantage (GCA) was measured by six items according to the research of Chen [14], Tian and Chen [37]. One example item was “Compared with the main competitors, your company has a low-cost competitive advantage in environmental protection.” The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the scale was 0.935, and the results of the confirmatory factor analysis show that the index were χ2/df = 1.093, GFI = 0.989, AGFI = 0.974, NFI = 0.972, CFI = 1, IFI = 1, and RMSEA = 0.018.


## 4.2.2. Independent Variable

According to previous studies [14, 30], green organizational identity (GOI) refers to “an organizational identity model of environmental management and protection jointly established by the members of the organization in order to give their behaviors meaning.” It is a concept involving multiple levels, so the identity of members at different levels within the organization should be set into the problems of measuring the variable. This study draws on the research of Chen [14], Gioia and Thomas [40], Pan and Tian [33] to measure GOI, using 4 items. One example item was “The top managers, middle managers and employees of your company have a strong sense of responsibility for their environmental goals.” The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the scale was 0.882, and the fitness index of the confirmatory factor analysis results were: χ2/df = 1.468, GFI = 0.995, AGFI = 0.975, NFI = 0.971, CFI = 0.986, IFI = 0.998, and RMSEA = 0.040.


## 4.2.3. Mediating Variables

Green innovation is divided into two dimensions: green exploitative innovation (GEI) and green exploratory innovation (GER). This study draws on the ways of the studies of Xu and Li [42], Zhou and Cao [44] measure green ambidextrous innovation, and each of the two dimensions includes 5 items. One example item for measuring GEI was “Your company can provide improved environmental products and services in the existing market”; another example item for measuring GER was “Your company periodically explores new customer groups.” The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the GEI was 0.907, and the adaptability index were: χ2/df = 2.781, GFI = 0.982, AGFI = 0.945, NFI = 0.961, CFI = 0.975, IFI = 0.968, and RMSEA = 0.079. The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the GER was 0.918, and the adaptability index were: χ2/df = 0.890, GFI = 0.994, AGFI = 0.991, CFI = 0.986, IFI = 0.998, and RMSEA = 0.000.


## 4.2.4. Moderating Variables

Organizational flexibility (OF) includes two dimensions: resource flexibility (RF) and capability flexibility (CF). This study refers to the research of Su [38] to measure OF. Each dimension contains four items. One example item for measuring RF was “The resources of your company have a wide area of applications”; another example item for measuring CF was “Your company often finds new uses and new combinations of existing resources within the company.” The Cronbach’s α coefficient of RF was 0.928, and the adaptability index of the confirmatory factor analysis results were: χ2/df = 1.863, GFI = 0.993, AGFI = 0.967, NFI = 0.971, CFI = 0.986, IFI = 0.981, and RMSEA = 0.055. The Cronbach’s α coefficient of CF was 0.934, and the adaptability index were: χ2/df = 1.606, GFI = 0.994, AGFI = 0.967, NFI = 0.971, CFI = 0.982, IFI = 0.993, and RMSEA = 0.046.


## 4.2.5. Control Variables

Based on the previous research, firm age, size, ownership, and the industry it is involved in will all affect the green innovation of a firm [14]. In order to ensure the model proposed in this study is robust, all of these variables were added to the model as the control variables. In addition, the independent variable of this study is GOI, and the value identity of green innovation needs to be formed at all levels within the enterprise. Therefore, this study also regards employee position as a control variable. Firm age was measured by the years it existed since the company was founded. Firm size was measured by the number of employees in the firm. The ownership and the industry of each company were controlled by employing dummy variables. Finally, employee position was also controlled by using dummy variables, which includes four dummy indicators: ordinary employee, first-line manager, middle manager, and senior manager.


## 5. Data Analysis and Results

### 5.1. Descriptive Statistical Analysis and Correlation Analysis of Variables

The multiple regression method is adopted in this article, because the purpose of this study is to reveal the specific mechanism of the competitive advantage of enterprises, especially to test the mediating role of green ambidexterity innovation, and the specific moderating role of organizational flexibility. Therefore, this article focuses more on the specific action paths among variables in the model, rather than the model as a whole. According to the research of Tanriverdi [45], compared with structural equation model analysis, regression analysis is more suitable to study the specific mechanism of action in the model. Especially for the testing of moderation, regression analysis has a wider application than the structural equation model, which can avoid problems such as measurement error destroying statistical significance and multicollinearity [46]. At the same time, the application of regression analysis technology is more mature, the procedures are more rigorous, and the operation process is controllable and more convenient [47]. Some scholars believe that SEM needs to put forward strong assumptions, and the test of SEM lacks robustness, so it is difficult to operate [46]. In addition, multiple regression analysis can more accurately separate the effects of independent variables in terms of the control variable setting, which is more advantageous than SEM [45]. Therefore, we consider that it is feasible to use regression analysis as an empirical method in this article.This article uses SPSS26.0 to carry out a Pearson correlation analysis on each variable, and the analysis results are shown in Table3, which includes the mean, standard deviation, and correlations of all the variables. In terms of the correlation coefficient, at the significant level of p < 0.05, there is an obvious correlation between the variables, which indicates that these variables have mutual influence and interdependence to a certain extent. In addition, from the data in Table 3, it can be seen that the average value of green exploitative innovation (GEI) is greater than green exploratory innovation (GER), reflecting the fact that most enterprises are more willing to innovate based on the mature technologies and capabilities than exploring new fields and new technologies.Table 3
The correlation coefficients between variables.
VariablesAverage indexesStandard deviation123456GOI3.5680.7801GEI3.6470.7450.127∗1GER3.6220.7430.159∗∗0.181∗∗1GCA3.5970.7240.083∗0.057∗0.073∗∗1RF3.5640.7100.135∗0.0030.173∗∗0.183∗∗1CF3.5990.7240.0830.144−0.1120.737∗∗0.196∗∗1Notes:∗indicates p < 0.05, ∗∗indicates p < 0.01.


### 5.2. Regression Analysis of GOI and GCA

The two models in Table4 show the impact of GOI on GCA. Model 1 is a baseline model to test the influence of all the control variables on the dependent variables. Model 2 introduces the GOI as an independent variable for regression analysis on the basis of Model 1.Table 4
Results of regression analysis of GOI and GCA.
VariablesGCAModel 1Model 2Control variablesThe Industry of the Enterprise0.049∗0.009Duration of Enterprise−0.141∗∗−0.051Enterprise Scale0.098∗0.000Nature of Enterprise−0.133−0.089Employee Position0.105∗0.055Independent variablesGOI0.626∗∗∗R20.0610.480AdjR20.0450.469F Statistics3.681∗43.278∗∗Notes:∗indicates p < 0.05, ∗∗indicates p < 0.01, ∗∗∗indicates p < 0.001.As the results show in Table4, the Adj R2 of Model 2 rises to 0.469 after introducing the GOI, demonstrating that GOI has a causal relationship with GCA to a certain degree. And there has a positive relationship between the GOI and GCA (β = 0.626, p < 0.001). Hypothesis 1 is supported.


### 5.3. Regression Analysis of GOI, GEI, and GER

Take the green ambidexterity innovation as the explained variable and the green organizational identity (GOI) as the explaining variable. Table5 shows the analysis results. Models 3 and 5 in Table 5 show the influence of all the control variables on GEI and GER, respectively. According to the value of Adj R2, Model 4 and Model 6 are larger than Model 3 and Model 5, respectively, which indicates the validity of the two models. The results of Model 4 show that there is a significant positive correlation between GOI and GEI (β = 0.713, p < 0.001), and Hypothesis 2a is supported. The results of Model 6 show that GOI positively effects GER (β = 0.570, p < 0.001), and Hypothesis 2b is also supported.Table 5
Regression analysis results of GOI, GEI, and GER.
VariablesGEIGERModel 3Model 4Model 5Model 6Control variablesThe Industry of the Enterprise0.076∗∗0.0310.083∗∗∗0.047∗Duration of Enterprise−0.106∗−0.004−0.215∗∗∗−0.132∗∗∗Enterprise Scale0.096∗−0.0150.170∗∗∗0.081∗∗Nature of Enterprise−0.219∗−0.169∗∗−0.055−0.015Employee Position0.153∗∗∗0.096∗∗0.166∗∗∗0.121∗∗∗Independent variablesGOI0.713∗∗∗0.570∗∗∗R20.1000.6130.1500.480AdjR20.0840.6040.1350.469F Statistics6.264∗74.064∗∗∗9.966∗∗43.194∗∗∗Notes:∗indicates p < 0.05, ∗∗indicates p < 0.01, ∗∗∗indicates p < 0.001.


### 5.4. Regression Analysis of GEI, GER, and GCA

To test Hypothesis 3, the three models in Table6 are constructed. Model 1 shows the influence of all the control variables on GCA. The results of Model 7 and Model 8 show that GEI and GER both have a positive impact on corporate GCA (β = 0.643, p < 0.001; β = 0.686, p < 0.001), and Hypothesis 3a and Hypothesis 3b are supported.Table 6
Regression analysis of the influence of GEI and GER on GCA.
VariablesGCAModel 1Model 7Model 8Control variablesThe Industry Field of the Enterprise0.049∗0.000−0.009Duration of Enterprise−0.141∗∗−0.073∗0.006Enterprise Scale0.098∗0.036−0.019Nature of Enterprise−0.1330.008−0.095Employee Position0.105∗0.007−0.009Independent variablesGEI0.643∗∗∗GER0.686∗∗∗R20.0610.4550.482AdjR20.0450.4430.471F Statistics3.681∗39.091∗∗43.526∗∗∗Notes:∗indicates p < 0.05, ∗∗indicates p < 0.01, ∗∗∗indicates p < 0.001.


### 5.5. Test of the Mediating Role of GEI and GER

Referring to the method adopted by Baron and Kenny [40] to test the intermediary effect, the steps of testing the intermediary effect of green ambidextrous innovation are as follows: (1) test the relationship between GOI and GCA (Model 2). (2) Test the effect of GOI on green ambidextrous innovation (i.e., Model 4 and Model 6), and the effect of green ambidextrous innovation on GCA (i.e., Model 7 and Model 8). (3) Test the effect of GOI and green ambidextrous innovation on GCA (i.e., Model 9 and Model 10). If the regression coefficient of GOI on GCA decreases significantly and is not equal to zero, then green ambidextrous innovation is a partial intermediary variable. If the regression coefficient is not significant anymore, green ambidextrous innovation is a complete intermediary variable.In Table7, the results of Model 2 show that GOI is significantly positively correlated with GCA (β = 0.626, p < 0.001), satisfying the first requirement that the independent variable has a significant impact on the dependent variable. The results of Model 9 show that GOI (β = 0.391, p < 0.001) and GEI (β = 0.331, p < 0.001) positively affect GCA, and the impact of GOI on GCA has declined (0.626 > 0.391), indicating that GEI plays a partial intermediary role between GOI and GCA, and Hypothesis 4a is supported. Similarly, the results of Model 10 show that GOI (β = 0.385, p < 0.001) and GER (β = 0.424, p < 0.001) positively affect GCA, and the impact of GOI on GCA has decreased (0.626 > 0.385), indicating that GER plays a partial intermediary role between GOI and GCA, and Hypothesis 4b is supported.Table 7
The regression result of the intermediary effect of GEI and GER.
VariablesGCAModel 2Model 9Model 10Control variablesThe Industry of the Enterprise0.009−0.001−0.011Duration of Enterprise−0.051−0.050.005Enterprise Scale0.0000.005−0.034Nature of Enterprise−0.089−0.033−0.083Employee Position0.0550.0230.004Independent variablesGOI0.626∗∗∗0.391∗∗∗0.385∗∗∗Intermediary variablesGEI0.331∗∗∗GER0.424∗∗∗R20.4800.5250.579AdjR20.4690.5130.568F Statistics43.278∗∗44.231∗∗54.911∗∗Notes:∗indicates p < 0.05, ∗∗indicates p < 0.01, ∗∗∗indicates p < 0.001.


### 5.6. Test of the Moderating Role of OF

In order to avoid the influence of multicollinearity on the research results, all independent variables and moderator variables were centralized before the data analysis. In order to test the moderating effect of RF on the relationship between green ambidextrous innovation and green competitive advantage (GCA), Model 11 and Model 13 add the RF on the basic of Model 7 and Model 8, respectively. Model 12 and Model 14 add interaction items to Model 11 and Model 13, respectively. The results of Model 12 in Table8 show that the coefficient of the interaction items of GEI and RF is negative but not significant (β = −0.074, p > 0.1), and Hypothesis 5a is not supported. Model 14 shows that the interactive items of green innovation and GF negatively affects the GCA (β = −0.089, p < 0.05). In addition, according to the value of Adj R2, Model 12 and Model 14 are larger than Model 11 and Model 13, respectively, which indicates the validity of the two models. Hypothesis 5b is also supported.Table 8
Regression results of the moderating effect of RF.
VariablesGCAModel 11Model 12Model 13Model 14The Industry of the Enterprise−0.016−0.014−0.017−0.014Duration of Enterprise−0.014−0.0230.009−0.001Enterprise Scale−0.022−0.019−0.037−0.032Nature of Enterprise−0.024−0.022−0.061−0.063Employee Position−0.035−0.037−0.037−0.037GEI0.218∗∗∗0.216∗∗∗GER0.223∗∗∗0.203∗∗∗RF0.667∗∗∗0.675∗∗∗0.658∗∗∗0.670∗∗∗GEI ∗ RF−0.074GER ∗ RF−0.089∗R20.6560.6600.6530.658AdjR20.6480.6500.6440.648F Statistics76.737∗∗∗67.559∗∗∗75.199∗∗∗67.120∗∗∗Notes:∗indicates p < 0.05, ∗∗indicates p < 0.01, ∗∗∗indicates p < 0.001.Similarly, Model 15 and Model 17 introduce CF as independent variables to Model 7 and Model 8, respectively. Model 16 and Model 18 introduce interaction items to Model 15 and Model 17, respectively. The results of Model 16 in Table9 show that the interaction coefficient of GEI and CF is negative but not significant（β = −0.053, p > 0.1), and Hypothesis 5c is not supported. Model 18 shows that the interaction items of GER and CF negatively affect GCA (β = −0.087, p < 0.05). Meanwhile, the value of Adj R2 in Model 18 increases, which further strengthens the interpretability of the model, and Hypothesis 5d is supported.Table 9
Regression results of the moderating effect of CF.
VariablesGCAModel 15Model 16Model 17Model 18The Industry Field of the Enterprise−0.006−0.004−0.009−0.005Duration of Enterprise−0.008−0.0140.0180.009Enterprise Scale−0.007−0.005−0.025−0.021Nature of Enterprise0.0620.0610.0270.025Employee Position−0.04−0.04−0.045−0.043GEI0.188∗∗∗0.181∗∗∗GER0.235∗∗∗0.217∗∗∗CF0.680∗∗∗0.688∗∗∗0.650∗∗∗0.658∗∗∗GEI∗ CF−0.053GER∗ CF−0.087∗R20.6630.6650.6710.676AdjR20.6550.6550.6630.667F Statistics78.686∗∗∗69.142∗∗∗81.552∗∗∗72.800∗∗∗Notes:∗indicates p < 0.05, ∗∗indicates p < 0.01, ∗∗∗indicates p < 0.001.The results of regression tests of Hypothesis 5a and Hypothesis 5c show that neither RF nor CF has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between GEI and GER. The possible reason is that the GEI in this study is based on the mature markets. In order to meet the needs of customers and the market, the continuous small-scale innovation achieved by the expansion of existing products in function or the improvement of technology has the characteristics of fast innovation speed, low cost, and low risk, which makes the GEI not require high OF in the process of gaining the GCA of enterprises.In order to further analyze the moderating effect of OF on GER and GCA, the regulation effect is shown in Figure2. According to the value of standard deviation, enterprises with high or low RF and CF are selected, and the samples are divided into two groups for a simple slope test, respectively. The simple slope test shows that whether OF is high or low, the GER of enterprises has a significant negative impact on the GCA of enterprises, but the corresponding slope difference is significant in the two groups of different enterprises (see Figure 2).Figure 2
Moderating effect of OF on the relationship between GER and GCA.All the above results show that 2 of the 14 hypotheses were not supported. A summary of the results for tested hypotheses appears in Table10.Table 10
Summary of results for tested propositions.
PropositionsResultH1: GOI has a positive effect on gaining GCA.SupportH2: GOI has a positive effect on green ambidexterity innovation.SupportH2a: GOI has a positive effect on GEI.SupportH2b: GOI has a positive effect on GER.SupportH3: Green ambidexterity innovation plays a positive role in gaining GCA for enterprises.SupportH3a: GEI has a positive effect on the GCA of enterprises.SupportH3b: GER has a positive effect on the GCA of enterprises.SupportH4: Green innovation plays an intermediary role between GOI and GCA.SupportH4a: GEI plays an intermediary role between GOI and GCA.SupportH4b: GER plays an intermediary role between GOI and GCA.SupportH5a: RF has a positive moderating effect between GEI and GCA.Not SupportH5b: RF has a negative moderating effect between GER and GCA.SupportH5c: CF has a positive moderating effect between GEI and GCANot SupportH5d: CF has a negative moderating effect between GER and GCA.Support


## 5.1. Descriptive Statistical Analysis and Correlation Analysis of Variables

The multiple regression method is adopted in this article, because the purpose of this study is to reveal the specific mechanism of the competitive advantage of enterprises, especially to test the mediating role of green ambidexterity innovation, and the specific moderating role of organizational flexibility. Therefore, this article focuses more on the specific action paths among variables in the model, rather than the model as a whole. According to the research of Tanriverdi [45], compared with structural equation model analysis, regression analysis is more suitable to study the specific mechanism of action in the model. Especially for the testing of moderation, regression analysis has a wider application than the structural equation model, which can avoid problems such as measurement error destroying statistical significance and multicollinearity [46]. At the same time, the application of regression analysis technology is more mature, the procedures are more rigorous, and the operation process is controllable and more convenient [47]. Some scholars believe that SEM needs to put forward strong assumptions, and the test of SEM lacks robustness, so it is difficult to operate [46]. In addition, multiple regression analysis can more accurately separate the effects of independent variables in terms of the control variable setting, which is more advantageous than SEM [45]. Therefore, we consider that it is feasible to use regression analysis as an empirical method in this article.This article uses SPSS26.0 to carry out a Pearson correlation analysis on each variable, and the analysis results are shown in Table3, which includes the mean, standard deviation, and correlations of all the variables. In terms of the correlation coefficient, at the significant level of p < 0.05, there is an obvious correlation between the variables, which indicates that these variables have mutual influence and interdependence to a certain extent. In addition, from the data in Table 3, it can be seen that the average value of green exploitative innovation (GEI) is greater than green exploratory innovation (GER), reflecting the fact that most enterprises are more willing to innovate based on the mature technologies and capabilities than exploring new fields and new technologies.Table 3
The correlation coefficients between variables.
VariablesAverage indexesStandard deviation123456GOI3.5680.7801GEI3.6470.7450.127∗1GER3.6220.7430.159∗∗0.181∗∗1GCA3.5970.7240.083∗0.057∗0.073∗∗1RF3.5640.7100.135∗0.0030.173∗∗0.183∗∗1CF3.5990.7240.0830.144−0.1120.737∗∗0.196∗∗1Notes:∗indicates p < 0.05, ∗∗indicates p < 0.01.


## 5.2. Regression Analysis of GOI and GCA

The two models in Table4 show the impact of GOI on GCA. Model 1 is a baseline model to test the influence of all the control variables on the dependent variables. Model 2 introduces the GOI as an independent variable for regression analysis on the basis of Model 1.Table 4
Results of regression analysis of GOI and GCA.
VariablesGCAModel 1Model 2Control variablesThe Industry of the Enterprise0.049∗0.009Duration of Enterprise−0.141∗∗−0.051Enterprise Scale0.098∗0.000Nature of Enterprise−0.133−0.089Employee Position0.105∗0.055Independent variablesGOI0.626∗∗∗R20.0610.480AdjR20.0450.469F Statistics3.681∗43.278∗∗Notes:∗indicates p < 0.05, ∗∗indicates p < 0.01, ∗∗∗indicates p < 0.001.As the results show in Table4, the Adj R2 of Model 2 rises to 0.469 after introducing the GOI, demonstrating that GOI has a causal relationship with GCA to a certain degree. And there has a positive relationship between the GOI and GCA (β = 0.626, p < 0.001). Hypothesis 1 is supported.


## 5.3. Regression Analysis of GOI, GEI, and GER

Take the green ambidexterity innovation as the explained variable and the green organizational identity (GOI) as the explaining variable. Table5 shows the analysis results. Models 3 and 5 in Table 5 show the influence of all the control variables on GEI and GER, respectively. According to the value of Adj R2, Model 4 and Model 6 are larger than Model 3 and Model 5, respectively, which indicates the validity of the two models. The results of Model 4 show that there is a significant positive correlation between GOI and GEI (β = 0.713, p < 0.001), and Hypothesis 2a is supported. The results of Model 6 show that GOI positively effects GER (β = 0.570, p < 0.001), and Hypothesis 2b is also supported.Table 5
Regression analysis results of GOI, GEI, and GER.
VariablesGEIGERModel 3Model 4Model 5Model 6Control variablesThe Industry of the Enterprise0.076∗∗0.0310.083∗∗∗0.047∗Duration of Enterprise−0.106∗−0.004−0.215∗∗∗−0.132∗∗∗Enterprise Scale0.096∗−0.0150.170∗∗∗0.081∗∗Nature of Enterprise−0.219∗−0.169∗∗−0.055−0.015Employee Position0.153∗∗∗0.096∗∗0.166∗∗∗0.121∗∗∗Independent variablesGOI0.713∗∗∗0.570∗∗∗R20.1000.6130.1500.480AdjR20.0840.6040.1350.469F Statistics6.264∗74.064∗∗∗9.966∗∗43.194∗∗∗Notes:∗indicates p < 0.05, ∗∗indicates p < 0.01, ∗∗∗indicates p < 0.001.


## 5.4. Regression Analysis of GEI, GER, and GCA

To test Hypothesis 3, the three models in Table6 are constructed. Model 1 shows the influence of all the control variables on GCA. The results of Model 7 and Model 8 show that GEI and GER both have a positive impact on corporate GCA (β = 0.643, p < 0.001; β = 0.686, p < 0.001), and Hypothesis 3a and Hypothesis 3b are supported.Table 6
Regression analysis of the influence of GEI and GER on GCA.
VariablesGCAModel 1Model 7Model 8Control variablesThe Industry Field of the Enterprise0.049∗0.000−0.009Duration of Enterprise−0.141∗∗−0.073∗0.006Enterprise Scale0.098∗0.036−0.019Nature of Enterprise−0.1330.008−0.095Employee Position0.105∗0.007−0.009Independent variablesGEI0.643∗∗∗GER0.686∗∗∗R20.0610.4550.482AdjR20.0450.4430.471F Statistics3.681∗39.091∗∗43.526∗∗∗Notes:∗indicates p < 0.05, ∗∗indicates p < 0.01, ∗∗∗indicates p < 0.001.


## 5.5. Test of the Mediating Role of GEI and GER

Referring to the method adopted by Baron and Kenny [40] to test the intermediary effect, the steps of testing the intermediary effect of green ambidextrous innovation are as follows: (1) test the relationship between GOI and GCA (Model 2). (2) Test the effect of GOI on green ambidextrous innovation (i.e., Model 4 and Model 6), and the effect of green ambidextrous innovation on GCA (i.e., Model 7 and Model 8). (3) Test the effect of GOI and green ambidextrous innovation on GCA (i.e., Model 9 and Model 10). If the regression coefficient of GOI on GCA decreases significantly and is not equal to zero, then green ambidextrous innovation is a partial intermediary variable. If the regression coefficient is not significant anymore, green ambidextrous innovation is a complete intermediary variable.In Table7, the results of Model 2 show that GOI is significantly positively correlated with GCA (β = 0.626, p < 0.001), satisfying the first requirement that the independent variable has a significant impact on the dependent variable. The results of Model 9 show that GOI (β = 0.391, p < 0.001) and GEI (β = 0.331, p < 0.001) positively affect GCA, and the impact of GOI on GCA has declined (0.626 > 0.391), indicating that GEI plays a partial intermediary role between GOI and GCA, and Hypothesis 4a is supported. Similarly, the results of Model 10 show that GOI (β = 0.385, p < 0.001) and GER (β = 0.424, p < 0.001) positively affect GCA, and the impact of GOI on GCA has decreased (0.626 > 0.385), indicating that GER plays a partial intermediary role between GOI and GCA, and Hypothesis 4b is supported.Table 7
The regression result of the intermediary effect of GEI and GER.
VariablesGCAModel 2Model 9Model 10Control variablesThe Industry of the Enterprise0.009−0.001−0.011Duration of Enterprise−0.051−0.050.005Enterprise Scale0.0000.005−0.034Nature of Enterprise−0.089−0.033−0.083Employee Position0.0550.0230.004Independent variablesGOI0.626∗∗∗0.391∗∗∗0.385∗∗∗Intermediary variablesGEI0.331∗∗∗GER0.424∗∗∗R20.4800.5250.579AdjR20.4690.5130.568F Statistics43.278∗∗44.231∗∗54.911∗∗Notes:∗indicates p < 0.05, ∗∗indicates p < 0.01, ∗∗∗indicates p < 0.001.


## 5.6. Test of the Moderating Role of OF

In order to avoid the influence of multicollinearity on the research results, all independent variables and moderator variables were centralized before the data analysis. In order to test the moderating effect of RF on the relationship between green ambidextrous innovation and green competitive advantage (GCA), Model 11 and Model 13 add the RF on the basic of Model 7 and Model 8, respectively. Model 12 and Model 14 add interaction items to Model 11 and Model 13, respectively. The results of Model 12 in Table8 show that the coefficient of the interaction items of GEI and RF is negative but not significant (β = −0.074, p > 0.1), and Hypothesis 5a is not supported. Model 14 shows that the interactive items of green innovation and GF negatively affects the GCA (β = −0.089, p < 0.05). In addition, according to the value of Adj R2, Model 12 and Model 14 are larger than Model 11 and Model 13, respectively, which indicates the validity of the two models. Hypothesis 5b is also supported.Table 8
Regression results of the moderating effect of RF.
VariablesGCAModel 11Model 12Model 13Model 14The Industry of the Enterprise−0.016−0.014−0.017−0.014Duration of Enterprise−0.014−0.0230.009−0.001Enterprise Scale−0.022−0.019−0.037−0.032Nature of Enterprise−0.024−0.022−0.061−0.063Employee Position−0.035−0.037−0.037−0.037GEI0.218∗∗∗0.216∗∗∗GER0.223∗∗∗0.203∗∗∗RF0.667∗∗∗0.675∗∗∗0.658∗∗∗0.670∗∗∗GEI ∗ RF−0.074GER ∗ RF−0.089∗R20.6560.6600.6530.658AdjR20.6480.6500.6440.648F Statistics76.737∗∗∗67.559∗∗∗75.199∗∗∗67.120∗∗∗Notes:∗indicates p < 0.05, ∗∗indicates p < 0.01, ∗∗∗indicates p < 0.001.Similarly, Model 15 and Model 17 introduce CF as independent variables to Model 7 and Model 8, respectively. Model 16 and Model 18 introduce interaction items to Model 15 and Model 17, respectively. The results of Model 16 in Table9 show that the interaction coefficient of GEI and CF is negative but not significant（β = −0.053, p > 0.1), and Hypothesis 5c is not supported. Model 18 shows that the interaction items of GER and CF negatively affect GCA (β = −0.087, p < 0.05). Meanwhile, the value of Adj R2 in Model 18 increases, which further strengthens the interpretability of the model, and Hypothesis 5d is supported.Table 9
Regression results of the moderating effect of CF.
VariablesGCAModel 15Model 16Model 17Model 18The Industry Field of the Enterprise−0.006−0.004−0.009−0.005Duration of Enterprise−0.008−0.0140.0180.009Enterprise Scale−0.007−0.005−0.025−0.021Nature of Enterprise0.0620.0610.0270.025Employee Position−0.04−0.04−0.045−0.043GEI0.188∗∗∗0.181∗∗∗GER0.235∗∗∗0.217∗∗∗CF0.680∗∗∗0.688∗∗∗0.650∗∗∗0.658∗∗∗GEI∗ CF−0.053GER∗ CF−0.087∗R20.6630.6650.6710.676AdjR20.6550.6550.6630.667F Statistics78.686∗∗∗69.142∗∗∗81.552∗∗∗72.800∗∗∗Notes:∗indicates p < 0.05, ∗∗indicates p < 0.01, ∗∗∗indicates p < 0.001.The results of regression tests of Hypothesis 5a and Hypothesis 5c show that neither RF nor CF has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between GEI and GER. The possible reason is that the GEI in this study is based on the mature markets. In order to meet the needs of customers and the market, the continuous small-scale innovation achieved by the expansion of existing products in function or the improvement of technology has the characteristics of fast innovation speed, low cost, and low risk, which makes the GEI not require high OF in the process of gaining the GCA of enterprises.In order to further analyze the moderating effect of OF on GER and GCA, the regulation effect is shown in Figure2. According to the value of standard deviation, enterprises with high or low RF and CF are selected, and the samples are divided into two groups for a simple slope test, respectively. The simple slope test shows that whether OF is high or low, the GER of enterprises has a significant negative impact on the GCA of enterprises, but the corresponding slope difference is significant in the two groups of different enterprises (see Figure 2).Figure 2
Moderating effect of OF on the relationship between GER and GCA.All the above results show that 2 of the 14 hypotheses were not supported. A summary of the results for tested hypotheses appears in Table10.Table 10
Summary of results for tested propositions.
PropositionsResultH1: GOI has a positive effect on gaining GCA.SupportH2: GOI has a positive effect on green ambidexterity innovation.SupportH2a: GOI has a positive effect on GEI.SupportH2b: GOI has a positive effect on GER.SupportH3: Green ambidexterity innovation plays a positive role in gaining GCA for enterprises.SupportH3a: GEI has a positive effect on the GCA of enterprises.SupportH3b: GER has a positive effect on the GCA of enterprises.SupportH4: Green innovation plays an intermediary role between GOI and GCA.SupportH4a: GEI plays an intermediary role between GOI and GCA.SupportH4b: GER plays an intermediary role between GOI and GCA.SupportH5a: RF has a positive moderating effect between GEI and GCA.Not SupportH5b: RF has a negative moderating effect between GER and GCA.SupportH5c: CF has a positive moderating effect between GEI and GCANot SupportH5d: CF has a negative moderating effect between GER and GCA.Support


## 6. Conclusion

This article divides green innovation into the dynamic evolution process of exploratory and exploitative green innovation based on the ambidexterity theory. From the perspective of the organizational identity theory, this article studies the effect of green organizational identity (GOI) on green innovation and green competitive advantage (GCA) of enterprises, analyzes the mediation mechanism of green innovation between GOI and corporate GCA, and discusses the moderating effect of organizational flexibility (OF) on the relationship between green innovation and GCA in the context of China. This study investigates and analyzes the coal, chemical, steel, brewing, pharmaceutical, metallurgy, and thermal power companies in the heavy polluting industries in Shanxi, Shandong, Inner Mongolia, and Shaanxi in central China. The empirical tests of data from Chinese enterprises in heavily polluting industries have successfully proved the relationship between GOI and green ambidexterity innovation, and the relationship is related to the GCA of enterprises.Firstly, this study finds that there is a significant positive correlation between GOI and GCA. Previous studies have revealed the direct impact of GOI with enterprise green management and environmental strategies [21]. However, different from the existing literature, this study explores the transmission process mechanism of GOI to the enterprises’ GCA. Enterprises can form GCA through the organizational identity of such nonimitative resources, construction of environmental awareness, or strategic environmental vision.Secondly, GOI can positively influence the green ambidexterity innovation. This finding provides support for previous scholars who pointed out that GOI can help enterprises enhance their green product awareness, thereby promoting green innovation [16]. On the one hand, GOI can coordinate the behavior of employees and generate new ideas, methods, and actions with greater efforts, which can be used to attract and persuade stakeholders to stimulate innovation [4, 15, 48]. On the other hand, GOI can encourage members to seek solutions in the process of green innovation [16] and can strengthen the understanding of organization members on green ambidexterity innovation. This effort enables enterprises to take full advantage of their internal resources to strengthen green innovation.Thirdly, the support for the H3 hypothesis states that there is a positive relationship between the green innovation and enterprises’ competitive advantage, which is in accordance with the findings. Both green exploitative innovation (GEI) and green exploratory innovation (GER) are positively correlated to corporate GCA. The finding proves the arguments of Porter and Linda [49] who state that green innovation helps enterprises identify opportunities inside and outside the organization, improve productivity and profits, and then gain a competitive advantage. But there is one difference in the paper that GER has a greater impact on enterprise competitive advantage. The possible reason is that GER requires enterprises to invest more human resources, material resources, and financial resources and try to achieve the integration of these resources with enterprise capabilities to develop new fields and create completely new knowledge. This innovation process is difficult to be imitated by competitors, through which enterprises can easier to obtain a competitive advantage. In practice, GER is more likely to help enterprise gain a long-term competitive advantage.Fourthly, we find that green innovation plays a partial intermediary role between GOI and GCA. On the one hand, under the encouragement of GOI, enterprises try to improve and perfect existing green knowledge, technology, and capabilities through GEI. At the same time, the higher the degree of GEI of enterprises, the more frequently enterprises engage in activities to improve existing green technologies. Due to repeated activities of the same type, it will naturally lead to a substantial increase in efficiency. Therefore, enterprises will significantly reduce production costs, improve product quality, and achieve continuous improvement, thereby gaining competitive advantages in the efficiency and benefits of green product improvement. On the other hand, GER can bring continuous improvement of resource productivity to enterprises through brand-new green design, green production, and green management. A high degree of GOI means that employees hold a positive attitude towards environmental issues and green development, and employees will broadly agree to acquire and create new green technology capabilities and knowledge, and bringing new development ideas to enterprises. The implementation of green ambidexterity innovation enables enterprises to set the industry’s green standards, which can not only meet the environmental protection needs of potential customers in the current market as well as emerging markets, but gain GCA that are difficult to be imitated by competitors in a short term.Lastly, most studies mainly concentrate on the direct influence of green innovation on GCA [2, 8, 50] and rarely involve the process of regulation mechanism between them. This article serves OF as a moderator variable and finds that it has a negative intermediary effect on the relationship between GER and GCA. Since GER requires higher utilization efficiency and value contribution of resources, those resources with exclusivity and specificity have more potential for GER. However, the flexibility of such resources is often low. Therefore, the higher the flexibility of enterprise resources, the lower specificity they have, which will reverse the positive impact of GER on green competitive advantage. Meanwhile, in the process of GER with great risks, if the enterprise’s CF is higher, the more likely it is to discover new ways or new resources of the original resources. However, blindly pursuing the improvement of CF will lead enterprises to ignore traditional rigid management methods, and it is easy for managers to lose their authority in the process of green ambidexterity innovation and even cause enterprises to fall into the “flexible trap” making the GCA of enterprises decrease instead of increase.


## 7. Discussion

### 7.1. Theoretical Contributions

First of all, although the positive effect of organizational identity on enterprise innovation and performance has been recognized by researchers, most of the research studies on the relationship between GOI and enterprises’ GCA have focused on the direct impact under the western cultural background, and few researchers studied the process mechanism between them without sufficient empirical support [14]. Based on the perspective of social identity and cultural identity in social psychology, this article discusses the impact of GOI on GCA of enterprises and how the effect is produced. It reveals that GOI is an important antecedent variable of enterprises’ GCA, and the test data from Chinese polluting enterprises also confirm this. The influence mechanism in this article expands the scope of application of the view of natural resources foundation in the China’s ecological civilization construction scenario and further enriches the relevant literature on the impact of green society and cultural identity on GCA in the organizational identity theory.Secondly, it is found that ambidexterity green innovation plays an intermediary role in the process of GOI affecting the GCA of enterprises. Taking GOI as the antecedent variable of ambidexterity green innovation, this article explores the transmission mechanism of green ambidexterity innovation between GOI and GCA of enterprises, which not only deepens the application of ambidexterity theory in the field of green innovation, but also further develops the theory of GCA. Green ambidexterity innovation has always been a neglected intermediary variable, and this finding therefore complements previous research on this topic and helps to explain why and how enterprises realize green sustainable development through green ambidexterity innovation [16]. At the same time, this study also helps researchers to better understand the intermediary mechanism between GOI and GCA, as well as the path for enterprises to achieve green innovation and development.Finally, focusing on the context of ecological civilization construction in China and strategic management of the enterprise, taking OF as a scenario mechanism to explore how it affects the relationship between green innovation and GCA of enterprises has great significance. Although existing literature studies have also explored OF as a regulatory mechanism for the interaction between enterprises and the environment [25, 34], different from these research studies, the study finds that OF has a negative moderating effect between GER and GCA of enterprise, which is helpful to understand the OF and promote the development of theory related to corporate innovation and competitive advantage.


### 7.2. Managerial Implications

Firstly, enterprise managers should attach great importance to the social and cultural identity of organization members for green development. Enterprise managers should actively help organizations to establish common cognitive beliefs about environmental protection in order to cope with complex environmental challenges. Under the background of global environmental crisis and sustainable development, the attitude of enterprises’ managers to deal with the environment determines the future fate of enterprises to a certain extent. Therefore, both the whole society and enterprises should actively create a green atmosphere. As organizational environmental cognition plays an important role in enterprise green innovation behavior, in order to promote organizational identity, enterprise managers should take a series of measures, actively collect the latest green knowledge, bring the concept of green management into the framework of organizational identity, and form a green interpretation mode in which the objectives and actions of environmental protection of relevant organizations are shared. Enterprise managers should enhance employees’ understanding of environmental strategy, stimulate the enthusiasm of enterprises for green innovation, and help enterprises establish a low-pollution green production system. In addition, managers should establish and improve the green knowledge and skills training mechanism for enterprise employees to provide knowledge and technical guarantees for the innovation and development of green products. At the same time, green organization identity can bring more green innovation opportunities and unimitated competitive advantages to enterprises. Enterprise managers attach importance to the organizational culture of green innovation and enhance leadership, which can strengthen employees’ understanding and recognition of enterprise environmental protection strategies and environmental behaviors, and then promote the emergence of green innovative thinking, which is helpful for enterprises to improve pollution prevention, energy saving, green product design, and waste recycling in environmental management during product production. Meanwhile, under this powerful cognitive model, enterprise managers should cultivate employees’ sense of value, belonging, and control over the organizational green culture, thereby enhancing the enterprise’s GCA.Secondly, enterprise managers should actively guide enterprises to engage in green ambidexterity innovation activities. In the process of development, enterprises need to turn the green concept into their development strategy and actively carry out different types of green innovation. Whether in the process of GEI or GER, managers should keep in mind that the green innovation activities should be guided by the green market. By continuously extending existing technologies and knowledge, enterprises can use raw materials more efficiently, prevent ecological environment pollution, and offset the costs caused by environmental improvement, to obtain the “premium benefit” brought by green products, and to promote the environmental quality of products or services in existing target markets and emerging markets. Especially for polluting enterprises in China, it is necessary to completely change the extensive development model in the past, drive high-quality development with green innovation, and gain a GCA that competitors are difficult to imitate and surpass.Finally, enterprise managers should pay attention to the strength of OF and actively pursue solutions to enhance their GCA in the process of GER. The study shows that the higher the RF, the lower their specificity, which will weaken the impact of GER on GCA. The higher the CF, the more likely the enterprise is to discover new ways or new resources through the original resources, but it is easy to fall into the danger of “flexibility trap,” reducing the GCA of the enterprise. Therefore, in the practice of GER, enterprises should reasonably grasp the strength of OF and prevent the excessive OF from falling into the “flexibility trap,” so as to achieve the effect of improving the GCA of enterprises.


### 7.3. Limitations and Future Research

Firstly, the article mainly selects the data of heavily polluting enterprises in Shanxi, Shandong, and Inner Mongolia in China, so the number of samples and industries is limited. In fact, green development is the main direction in the future. In the future, the follow-up research will expand the sample category and sample size, which will cover more enterprises and make the research more universal. At the same time, this article only uses cross-sectional study, and the adjustment of organizational flexibility is a dynamic process, so it may be difficult to objectively and fully explain the adjustment influence of organizational flexibility on green ambidexterity innovation and green competitive advantage. In the future, longitudinal data can be adopted for dynamic research. In addition, the subsectors analyzed are very different from each other, and the results obtained may vary depending on each subindustry in the sample. Thus, future research can investigate the heterogeneity among subsectors. What is more, the hypothesis of OF on the relationship between GEI and GCA has not been verified, and there may be other mechanisms among the three. The relationship between the three and constructing a reasonable mechanism still need to be studied further. Moreover, the primary period for data collection was prior to the novel coronavirus, the business reality has changed as a consequence of the pandemic, and the results from the research may be different. The next step of research can be based on the context of the epidemic. Finally, this article adopts questionnaire survey to test the hypothesis. The subjective perception and judgment of enterprise managers on the measurement indicators cannot fully reflect the objective situation. Future research can take enterprise financial indicators for empirical research, which provides more reliable basis and more comprehensive guidance for enterprises to obtain green competitive advantage. (Table11)Table 11NumberStrongly disagreeDisagreeUncertainAgreeStrongly agreePart one: Green organizational identity1The top managers, middle managers, and employees of your company have a strong sense of responsibility for their environmental goals123452The top managers, middle managers, and employees of your company have made remarkable achievements in environmental protection123453The top managers, middle managers, and employees of your company understand the traditional culture of environmental protection123454The top managers, middle managers, and employees of your company are actively involved in environmental protection activities12345Part two: Green ambidexterity innovationPart two: Green innovationExploitative Green Innovation (GEI)1Your company can provide improved environmental products/services in the existing market123452Your company supplies existing environmental products/services123453Your company strives to improve the quality of supply of environmentally friendly products/services123454Your company obtains the environmental protection management information periodically to supply the better products123455Your company expands its existing market by maximizing economies of scale12345Exploratory Green Innovation (GER)1Your company periodically explores new customer groups123452Your company seeks for new distribution channels periodically123453Your company is experimenting with new eco-friendly products/services in the local market123454Your company is actively developing new environmentally friendly products/services123455Your company recognizes that customers have advanced environmental needs12345Part three: Green competitive advantage1Compared with the main competitors, your company has a low-cost competitive advantage in environmental protection123452The quality of your green products/services is better than that of your major competitors123453Compared with your major competitors, your company is more capable in environmental development and investment123454Your company is more capable in environmental management than your main competitors123455Your company’s green products/services are more profitable than your major competitors123456Your company’s green products/services grow faster than your major competitors12345Part four: Organizational flexibilityResource flexibility1Your company’s resources have a wide area of applications123452Your company can easily find new uses for resources123453The difficulty and cost of converting from one resource to another is low123454It takes a short time for your company to move from one resource to another12345Capability Flexibility1Your company often finds new uses/new combinations of existing resources within the company123452Your company often finds new uses/new combinations of external resources123453Your company can quickly arrange resources through the system within the enterprise and apply them to the target product123454Your company can profit from changing environmental12345


## 7.1. Theoretical Contributions

First of all, although the positive effect of organizational identity on enterprise innovation and performance has been recognized by researchers, most of the research studies on the relationship between GOI and enterprises’ GCA have focused on the direct impact under the western cultural background, and few researchers studied the process mechanism between them without sufficient empirical support [14]. Based on the perspective of social identity and cultural identity in social psychology, this article discusses the impact of GOI on GCA of enterprises and how the effect is produced. It reveals that GOI is an important antecedent variable of enterprises’ GCA, and the test data from Chinese polluting enterprises also confirm this. The influence mechanism in this article expands the scope of application of the view of natural resources foundation in the China’s ecological civilization construction scenario and further enriches the relevant literature on the impact of green society and cultural identity on GCA in the organizational identity theory.Secondly, it is found that ambidexterity green innovation plays an intermediary role in the process of GOI affecting the GCA of enterprises. Taking GOI as the antecedent variable of ambidexterity green innovation, this article explores the transmission mechanism of green ambidexterity innovation between GOI and GCA of enterprises, which not only deepens the application of ambidexterity theory in the field of green innovation, but also further develops the theory of GCA. Green ambidexterity innovation has always been a neglected intermediary variable, and this finding therefore complements previous research on this topic and helps to explain why and how enterprises realize green sustainable development through green ambidexterity innovation [16]. At the same time, this study also helps researchers to better understand the intermediary mechanism between GOI and GCA, as well as the path for enterprises to achieve green innovation and development.Finally, focusing on the context of ecological civilization construction in China and strategic management of the enterprise, taking OF as a scenario mechanism to explore how it affects the relationship between green innovation and GCA of enterprises has great significance. Although existing literature studies have also explored OF as a regulatory mechanism for the interaction between enterprises and the environment [25, 34], different from these research studies, the study finds that OF has a negative moderating effect between GER and GCA of enterprise, which is helpful to understand the OF and promote the development of theory related to corporate innovation and competitive advantage.


## 7.2. Managerial Implications

Firstly, enterprise managers should attach great importance to the social and cultural identity of organization members for green development. Enterprise managers should actively help organizations to establish common cognitive beliefs about environmental protection in order to cope with complex environmental challenges. Under the background of global environmental crisis and sustainable development, the attitude of enterprises’ managers to deal with the environment determines the future fate of enterprises to a certain extent. Therefore, both the whole society and enterprises should actively create a green atmosphere. As organizational environmental cognition plays an important role in enterprise green innovation behavior, in order to promote organizational identity, enterprise managers should take a series of measures, actively collect the latest green knowledge, bring the concept of green management into the framework of organizational identity, and form a green interpretation mode in which the objectives and actions of environmental protection of relevant organizations are shared. Enterprise managers should enhance employees’ understanding of environmental strategy, stimulate the enthusiasm of enterprises for green innovation, and help enterprises establish a low-pollution green production system. In addition, managers should establish and improve the green knowledge and skills training mechanism for enterprise employees to provide knowledge and technical guarantees for the innovation and development of green products. At the same time, green organization identity can bring more green innovation opportunities and unimitated competitive advantages to enterprises. Enterprise managers attach importance to the organizational culture of green innovation and enhance leadership, which can strengthen employees’ understanding and recognition of enterprise environmental protection strategies and environmental behaviors, and then promote the emergence of green innovative thinking, which is helpful for enterprises to improve pollution prevention, energy saving, green product design, and waste recycling in environmental management during product production. Meanwhile, under this powerful cognitive model, enterprise managers should cultivate employees’ sense of value, belonging, and control over the organizational green culture, thereby enhancing the enterprise’s GCA.Secondly, enterprise managers should actively guide enterprises to engage in green ambidexterity innovation activities. In the process of development, enterprises need to turn the green concept into their development strategy and actively carry out different types of green innovation. Whether in the process of GEI or GER, managers should keep in mind that the green innovation activities should be guided by the green market. By continuously extending existing technologies and knowledge, enterprises can use raw materials more efficiently, prevent ecological environment pollution, and offset the costs caused by environmental improvement, to obtain the “premium benefit” brought by green products, and to promote the environmental quality of products or services in existing target markets and emerging markets. Especially for polluting enterprises in China, it is necessary to completely change the extensive development model in the past, drive high-quality development with green innovation, and gain a GCA that competitors are difficult to imitate and surpass.Finally, enterprise managers should pay attention to the strength of OF and actively pursue solutions to enhance their GCA in the process of GER. The study shows that the higher the RF, the lower their specificity, which will weaken the impact of GER on GCA. The higher the CF, the more likely the enterprise is to discover new ways or new resources through the original resources, but it is easy to fall into the danger of “flexibility trap,” reducing the GCA of the enterprise. Therefore, in the practice of GER, enterprises should reasonably grasp the strength of OF and prevent the excessive OF from falling into the “flexibility trap,” so as to achieve the effect of improving the GCA of enterprises.


## 7.3. Limitations and Future Research

Firstly, the article mainly selects the data of heavily polluting enterprises in Shanxi, Shandong, and Inner Mongolia in China, so the number of samples and industries is limited. In fact, green development is the main direction in the future. In the future, the follow-up research will expand the sample category and sample size, which will cover more enterprises and make the research more universal. At the same time, this article only uses cross-sectional study, and the adjustment of organizational flexibility is a dynamic process, so it may be difficult to objectively and fully explain the adjustment influence of organizational flexibility on green ambidexterity innovation and green competitive advantage. In the future, longitudinal data can be adopted for dynamic research. In addition, the subsectors analyzed are very different from each other, and the results obtained may vary depending on each subindustry in the sample. Thus, future research can investigate the heterogeneity among subsectors. What is more, the hypothesis of OF on the relationship between GEI and GCA has not been verified, and there may be other mechanisms among the three. The relationship between the three and constructing a reasonable mechanism still need to be studied further. Moreover, the primary period for data collection was prior to the novel coronavirus, the business reality has changed as a consequence of the pandemic, and the results from the research may be different. The next step of research can be based on the context of the epidemic. Finally, this article adopts questionnaire survey to test the hypothesis. The subjective perception and judgment of enterprise managers on the measurement indicators cannot fully reflect the objective situation. Future research can take enterprise financial indicators for empirical research, which provides more reliable basis and more comprehensive guidance for enterprises to obtain green competitive advantage. (Table11)Table 11NumberStrongly disagreeDisagreeUncertainAgreeStrongly agreePart one: Green organizational identity1The top managers, middle managers, and employees of your company have a strong sense of responsibility for their environmental goals123452The top managers, middle managers, and employees of your company have made remarkable achievements in environmental protection123453The top managers, middle managers, and employees of your company understand the traditional culture of environmental protection123454The top managers, middle managers, and employees of your company are actively involved in environmental protection activities12345Part two: Green ambidexterity innovationPart two: Green innovationExploitative Green Innovation (GEI)1Your company can provide improved environmental products/services in the existing market123452Your company supplies existing environmental products/services123453Your company strives to improve the quality of supply of environmentally friendly products/services123454Your company obtains the environmental protection management information periodically to supply the better products123455Your company expands its existing market by maximizing economies of scale12345Exploratory Green Innovation (GER)1Your company periodically explores new customer groups123452Your company seeks for new distribution channels periodically123453Your company is experimenting with new eco-friendly products/services in the local market123454Your company is actively developing new environmentally friendly products/services123455Your company recognizes that customers have advanced environmental needs12345Part three: Green competitive advantage1Compared with the main competitors, your company has a low-cost competitive advantage in environmental protection123452The quality of your green products/services is better than that of your major competitors123453Compared with your major competitors, your company is more capable in environmental development and investment123454Your company is more capable in environmental management than your main competitors123455Your company’s green products/services are more profitable than your major competitors123456Your company’s green products/services grow faster than your major competitors12345Part four: Organizational flexibilityResource flexibility1Your company’s resources have a wide area of applications123452Your company can easily find new uses for resources123453The difficulty and cost of converting from one resource to another is low123454It takes a short time for your company to move from one resource to another12345Capability Flexibility1Your company often finds new uses/new combinations of existing resources within the company123452Your company often finds new uses/new combinations of external resources123453Your company can quickly arrange resources through the system within the enterprise and apply them to the target product123454Your company can profit from changing environmental12345



---

*Source: 4305900-2022-04-23.xml*