The impact of supply chain pressure on cross-functional green integration and environmental performance: an empirical study from Chinese firms

Our research is designed to uncover the influence of institutional pressure from supply chain partners on cross-functional green integration (CFGI) and environmental performance. We applied structural equation modeling (SEM) using data from 206 Chinese manufacturers to test the conceptual model. Our findings demonstrate that firms are influenced by supply chain partners to perform CFGI. However, the effects differ when suppliers and customers exert different types of pressure. Specifically, both customer coercive and mimetic pressure show positive effects on CFGI, whereas suppliers’ exerting such pressure does not take effect or even backfires. Contrary to the effects of coercive and mimetic pressure, supplier normative pressure facilitates CFGI, but customer normative pressure does not play a role. In addition, our findings indicate that CFGI (especially for green strategy alignment and process coordination) is critical to environmental performance. This paper provides fruitful insights into the institutional theory by showing the causes of isomorphism from a supply chain perspective.