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Based on the upper echelons theory, dynamic capability theory, and resource-based view, this study explores the impact of top management’s environmental awareness (TMEA) on green innovation (GI), the moderating role of absorptive capacity (AC) and slack resources (SR). Using the data of A-shared listed manufacturing firms in China from 2010–2023, this study finds that TMEA has a significant positive effect on GI. Furthermore, AC and unabsorbed slack resources (USR) strengthen the effect of TMEA on GI, whereas absorbed slack resources (ASR) weaken the effect of TMEA on GI. The results provide a more comprehensive understanding for enterprises to implement GI, expand boundary conditions between TMEA and GI, and contribute to the improvement of research on GI.

In recent years, there has been an increasing recognition of the importance of the coordinated development of digitalization and greenization. However, the existing research lacks a systematic framework for understanding the relationship between different dimensions of digital transformation and various strategies of green innovation. Furthermore, the role of different types of slack resources in this relationship has been largely overlooked. This paper aims to address these gaps by examining the impact of digital transformation on corporate greenization and the moderating role of organizational slack from a heterogeneity perspective. To achieve this, we differentiate digital transformation into two dimensions: breadth and depth. Similarly, corporate greenization is divided into input and output. Additionally, we distinguish between absorbed and unabsorbed slack resources. We empirically test our research hypotheses using data from Chinese A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2020. Our findings reveal the following insights: 1) The breadth and depth of digital transformation positively influence corporate greenization outputs, while negatively affecting greenization inputs. 2) The depth of digital transformation has a stronger impact on both greenization input and output compared to its breadth. 3) Absorbed slack resources and unabsorbed slack resources not only act as negative moderators in the relationship between digital transformation and greenization inputs but also weaken the positive impact of digital transformation on greenization outputs. 4) Absorbed slack resources exhibit a stronger moderating effect than unabsorbed slack resources. This paper contributes to the literature by shedding light on the differential effects of different dimensions of digital transformation on various types of greenization, considering the role of slack resources. Moreover, it provides practical implications for effectively advancing digitalization and greenization in Chinese enterprises.

The frequency of supply chain disruptions highlights the importance of supply chain resilience (SCR). Although previous studies have shown that slack resources can effectively contribute to SCR, the configuration of absorbed and unabsorbed slack resources remains unexplored. This study bridges this gap by examining how the balance and absolute levels of absorbed and unabsorbed slack resources, as well as their imbalanced directions (over-absorbed or over-unabsorbed), influence SCR. Employing polynomial regression and response surface analyses on a sample of 272 firms, our findings suggest that SCR is stronger when absorbed and unabsorbed slack resources are balanced rather than imbalanced. In addition, when balanced, SCR becomes stronger as the absolute levels of absorbed and unabsorbed slack resources increase. Interestingly, SCR is more adversely affected in a high-absorbed and low-unabsorbed state than in the reverse. Furthermore, network heterogeneity enhances the positive impact of this balance on SCR. This study innovatively introduces ambidexterity theory into the field of slack resources, deepening the understanding of the relationship between slack resources and SCR. At the same time, network heterogeneity is incorporated into the analytical framework, emphasizing the impact of external environmental factors on firms’ internal operations. This study provides direction for firms in coping with supply chain disruptions from a resource perspective, emphasizing the balance of internal slack resources and the interaction between internal resources and external environment, which has strong practical implications.

The paper explored the effects of financial and human resource slacks on firms' export intensity. Using longitudinal data of Vietnamese firms with a random effect model, the study found that financial slack had an inverted-U shaped effect; meanwhile, human resource slack had no consistently significant effect on firms' export intensity. The empirical findings could have managerial practice implications at the firm level. Too few - or too many - slack resources are bad for export intensity. Therefore, firm managers need to consider the necessary level of redundancy for slack resources to avoid prodigality while doing business. This study contributed new insights to international business and slack literatures. First, our findings contributed to the international business literature. In classic internalization studies, it has generally been believed that firms with access to greater resources are more likely to exploit foreign markets. However, our research showed that, when there were too many slack resources, business activities in firms' foreign markets, such as exports, could be reduced due to complacency among firm managers. Second, the research results contributed to literature on slack resources, providing a new insight on their effects on firms' export intensity. Aside from linear or U-shaped effects, slack resources could have inverse U-shaped relationships with firms' export intensity.

PurposeThis study aims to analyse the impact of the degree of internationalisation (DOI) on firm performance (FP), with the moderating role of organisational slack resources, namely, absorbed slack human resources, absorbed financial slack resources and unabsorbed slack resources, in the context of Asian emerging markets.Design/methodology/approachData includes 45 companies and 225 observations in 2014–2018. The authors adopted the generalised least squares method to test their hypotheses.FindingsDOI negatively influences FP, indicating that the link between DOI and FP is not U-shaped but relatively linear. Absorbed human resources and absorbed slack financial resources significantly enhance FP, absorbing resources associated with DOI and FP. Unabsorbed slack resources play a minor role in mitigating the deleterious impact of DOIs on FP.Practical implicationsFirms in an emerging market should begin exploring and expanding into overseas markets with characteristics similar to the domestic market. The firm should optimise the benefits of slack resources by appropriately allocating resources to strategic operations.Originality/valueThis study reveals the beneficial effect of organisational slack resources on the DOI-FP relationship via the lens of the resource-based view.

Research summary: Integrating the behavioral and institutional perspectives, we propose that a country's formal institutions, particularly its legal frameworks, affect managers' deployment of slack resources. Specifically, we explore the moderating effects of creditor and employee rights on the performance effects of slack. Using longitudinal data from 162,633 European private firms in 26 countries, we find that financial slack enhances firm performance at diminishing rates, whereas human resource (HR) slack lowers performance at diminishing rates. However, financial slack has a more positive effect on firm performance in countries with weaker creditor rights, whereas HR slack has a more negative effect on performance in countries with stronger employee rights. The results provide a richer view of the relationship between slack and firm performance than currently assumed in the literature. Managerial summary: A key dilemma managers often encounter is whether, on the one hand, they should build in excess resources to buffer their firms from internal and external shocks and to pursue new opportunities or whether, on the other hand, they should develop \"lean\" firms. Our study suggests that excess cash resources—which are usually viewed as easy to redeploy—benefit firm performance, especially when firms operate in countries with weaker creditor rights. However, excess human resources—which are usually viewed as more difficult to redeploy—hamper firm performance, particularly when firms operate in countries with stronger labor protection laws. Thus, the management of slack resources critically depends on the characteristics of these resources (e.g., redeployability) and the institutional context in which managers operate.

Possessing slack resources enables businesses to invest in innovative and stakeholder-focused initiatives. Therefore, we posit that higher slack resources encourage businesses to allocate these resources to improve their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. Moreover, as a central sustainability governance mechanism, we hypothesize that the corporate social responsibility (CSR) committee supports investing slack resources in ESG initiatives. Using data from Nasdaq-100 firms, we find initial support for a positive effect of slack resources for ESG. However, further analyses reveal that slack resources become detrimental to ESG after an economically relevant threshold, indicating an inverted U-shaped effect of slack resources. Additionally, despite their generally positive effect, we uncover that CSR committees cannot effectively enhance the benefits of low or moderate slack levels for ESG nor prevent the detriments of elevated slack levels for ESG. Therefore, our study significantly contributes to the ongoing discourse surrounding slack resources, ESG, and the usefulness of CSR committees. These findings hold significant implications for ethical resource allocation, urging firms and their decision-makers to reconsider the dual-edged role of slack resources in the unique ESG context and support the CSR committee in realizing its potential for promoting sustainability and ethical practices within the organization.

This study explores how entrepreneurial firms responded to - and displayed resilience in - coping with the uncertainty generated by an unexpected crisis. We examine how entrepreneurs leveraged slack resources to build organizational resilience and, thanks to their entrepreneurial attitude, could eventually turn adversities into opportunities. Through a multiple case study, four key entrepreneurial responses emerge about the type of slack resources (business or family) and extent of entrepreneurial attitude (favourable or unfavourable) leveraged: “waiting while seeding”, “keeping business as usual”, “striving to resist” and “surfing the pandemic”. Slack resources, both business and family, can enable the absorption of a shock, contributing to building absorptive resilience, or the adaptation to the shock, contributing to building adaptive resilience. Yet, they are not sufficient to turn adversities into opportunities because firms also require a favourable entrepreneurial attitude to activate slack.Plain English Summary How entrepreneurial firms respond to - and display resilience in - coping with a crisis’s uncertainty varies according to the entrepreneurial attitude of the entrepreneur and the typology of slack resource leveraged. We find that these firms responded to the Covid 19 crisis either through: “waiting while seeding”, “keeping business as usual”, “striving to resist” or “surfing the pandemic”. The four responses differ in the type of slack resources — business or family — and extent of entrepreneurial attitude — favourable or unfavourable — leveraged. Slack resources, both business and family, are not sufficient to turn adversities into opportunities because firms require a favourable entrepreneurial attitude to activate slack. The study contributes to business practice by showing that both family and non-family businesses to thrive in the “new normal” era will have to develop the entrepreneurial resources of the team. Policymakers must be attentive to how firms’ accumulated resources are deployed during times of crisis and foster the capture of opportunities out of the storm.

Environmental research has usually highlighted that the existence of slack resources in an organization helps allocate investment to innovative initiatives. However, the existing literature has paid very limited attention to how slack resources can influence the effects of focused and diversified innovations in different ways. Agency theory scholars claim that a manager's first preference when confronted with discretionary resources will not generate positive investments for the firm, but their own opportunistic preferences. The differences between focused and diversified environmental innovations allow us to gain a better understanding of the financial impact of being focused and how slack resources matter in this context. We analyze a longitudinal sample of 5845 environmental patents from the 75 largest companies in the electrical components and equipment industry worldwide. Our results show that high levels of slack resources reduce the existing positive relationship between focused environmental innovations and a firm's financial performance. These results contribute to delineating the theoretical and empirical implications of focused versus diversified environmental innovations and extend the literature on ethical dilemmas concerning managers' use of slack resources in the firm.

Studies done in developed economies have demonstrated a positive relationship between financial resource availability and CSR. Arguments that we term the Institutional Difference Hypothesis (IDH) drawn from the institutional literature, however, suggest that institutional differences between developed and developing economies are likely to result in different CSR implications. Integrating the logic of IDH with insights from slack resources theory, we argue that there exists a negative relationship between financial resource availability and CSR expenditures for firms in Ghana, a sub-Saharan African emerging economy. We use lagged data from the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre and find that Return on Sales, Return on Equity, and Net Profitability were consistently associated with lower CSR expenditures. We highlight the implications of our findings for research and managers.