Concentrate or Diversify? Unraveling the Effect of Customer Concentration on Green Innovation
基于知识观和资源依赖理论，利用2001-2020年中国2718家上市制造企业数据，发现客户集中度与绿色创新呈倒U型关系，且市场份额会弱化这一曲线关系。
While the engineering management literature suggests that major customers exert an impact on firms’ engagement in green innovation, there are controversial views regarding the role of customer concentration in affecting green innovation. Drawing upon the knowledge-based view and resource dependence theory, we propose that customer concentration has a nonlinear effect on green innovation. By utilizing a panel dataset of 2718 Chinese listed manufacturing firms from 2001 to 2020, we find that customer concentration has an inverted U-shaped association with green innovation. In addition, market share flattens this curvilinear association, whereas industry competition does not significantly influence this association. Overall, this article contributes to a nuanced understanding of the inverted U-shaped effect of customer concentration on green innovation and the boundary condition that shapes this effect.