Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility, Green Intellectual Capital, and Green Innovation on Competitive Advantage

The concept of green intellectual capital has gained substantial popularity in the context of pressures from competition, environmental forces, and mounting stakeholders’ expectations for environmental protection. Scholars have investigated the antecedents and consequences of green intellectual capital. However, those investigations look inexhaustive in terms of the research frameworks and contexts employed therein. Based on the systematic literature review, this paper builds a better model involving both antecedents and consequences of green intellectual capital. The model proposes that corporate social responsibility is a factor leading to green intellectual capital. Additionally, green intellectual capital leads to green innovation resulting in competitive advantage for firms. Importantly, the model acknowledges contingency theory and suggests that the relationship between corporate social responsibility and green innovation could be moderated by the extent to which a firm is visible to the general public for its activities as well as the extent to which the firm is transparent.