Environmental proactivity, competitive strategy, and market performance: The mediating role of environmental reputation
研究中小企业主动环保战略如何通过环境声誉影响市场绩效，并发现差异化战略能增强环境声誉对市场绩效的作用，而低成本或整合战略则无此效果。
Abstract This article examines the impact of small and medium‐sized enterprises' (SMEs) proactive environmental strategy on market performance through the mediating mechanism of environmental reputation. In addition, we investigate the potential moderating role of competitive strategies on the environmental reputation‐market performance nexus. Data were collected from 223 SMEs. Using the hierarchical multiple regression analysis, the results show that a proactive environmental strategy positively enhances environmental reputation. Also, the influence of proactively environmental strategy on market performance is mediated by environmental reputation. In addition, our findings show the relationship between environmental reputation and market performance is greater for firms that adopt the differentiation strategy but not significant for firms adopting the low‐cost and integrated strategies. Our study offers several theoretical and practical implications.