1 Introduction
Rapid industrial growth and improper resource management in the past decade has
led to imbalance in demand and supply of resources; also industrial growth has
caused environmental degradation which is a major concern worldwide (Tam et al.
2006; Zhe et al. 2016). Few years back investment in environmental activities and
greening of operations were considered unnecessary burden by the companies, but
recently due to stringent government regulations and competition to attract new
customers on the basis of organizations, green image has led to changing in thinking
and pattern of investment for organizations (Porter and Van der Linde 1995). Due to
resource constraints and demand to provide different products at low cost, embracing green innovation is necessity for organizations, and green innovation is an
important tool for sustainable development of organization (Chang 2011). Green
innovation is conceptualized as those activities which are green and helps the
organizations to optimize internal resources thus enhancing their ability to produce
green products and services. These activities must comply with environmental
regulations and market demand and use green and sustainable technologies by
involving all the stakeholders (Gupta and Barua 2017, 2018; Fernando et al.
2019). Green innovation is an important pillar for major sustainable shift across
various manufacturing organizations as well as for green supply chains (Dubey et al.
2015; Zhu and Sarkis 2007). Green innovation requires human resources which are
capable to learn, organize, execute, and monitor the eco-efficient activities at the
organizations (Song and Wang 2018). Organizations’ orientation toward green
innovation can help them to solve environmental degradation-related issues, and
addressing those issues will help the organizations to provide better service and
products to the customers (Eiadat et al. 2008). The literature also supports the fact
that the green innovation is instrumental for improving performance of the
organizations.
The choice of an organization to implement the type of green innovation and
technologies lies with its organizational goals and operational conditions. The
success of green innovation technologies depends upon a variety of factors like
external factors that include collaboration with supply chain partners and internal
factors like organizations capacity to adopt green technology, technical competencies, etc. (Hermann et al. 2016). External factors are difficult to control directly by
the organizations as they depend on a number of external factors; on the other hand
internal barriers are equally complex due to their micro level interaction and
dependency on each other (Song et al. 2018). The internal barriers are still easy to
control and manage and hence should be given priority. Adopting green innovation
practices is not easy task and organizations need to start building its internal
capabilities and overcome internal barriers to green innovation capabilities first
rather than depending on external help for greening its operations. In this context,
this study has the following objectives:
• To identify the internal barriers to green innovation
• To identify the hierarchal structure and relationship among these barriers
140
H. Gupta and M. K. Barua
Rapid industrial growth and improper resource management in the past decade has
led to imbalance in demand and supply of resources; also industrial growth has
caused environmental degradation which is a major concern worldwide (Tam et al.
2006; Zhe et al. 2016). Few years back investment in environmental activities and
greening of operations were considered unnecessary burden by the companies, but
recently due to stringent government regulations and competition to attract new
customers on the basis of organizations, green image has led to changing in thinking
and pattern of investment for organizations (Porter and Van der Linde 1995). Due to
resource constraints and demand to provide different products at low cost, embracing green innovation is necessity for organizations, and green innovation is an
important tool for sustainable development of organization (Chang 2011). Green
innovation is conceptualized as those activities which are green and helps the
organizations to optimize internal resources thus enhancing their ability to produce
green products and services. These activities must comply with environmental
regulations and market demand and use green and sustainable technologies by
involving all the stakeholders (Gupta and Barua 2017, 2018; Fernando et al.
2019). Green innovation is an important pillar for major sustainable shift across
various manufacturing organizations as well as for green supply chains (Dubey et al.
2015; Zhu and Sarkis 2007). Green innovation requires human resources which are
capable to learn, organize, execute, and monitor the eco-efficient activities at the
organizations (Song and Wang 2018). Organizations’ orientation toward green
innovation can help them to solve environmental degradation-related issues, and
addressing those issues will help the organizations to provide better service and
products to the customers (Eiadat et al. 2008). The literature also supports the fact
that the green innovation is instrumental for improving performance of the
organizations.
The choice of an organization to implement the type of green innovation and
technologies lies with its organizational goals and operational conditions. The
success of green innovation technologies depends upon a variety of factors like
external factors that include collaboration with supply chain partners and internal
factors like organizations capacity to adopt green technology, technical competencies, etc. (Hermann et al. 2016). External factors are difficult to control directly by
the organizations as they depend on a number of external factors; on the other hand
internal barriers are equally complex due to their micro level interaction and
dependency on each other (Song et al. 2018). The internal barriers are still easy to
control and manage and hence should be given priority. Adopting green innovation
practices is not easy task and organizations need to start building its internal
capabilities and overcome internal barriers to green innovation capabilities first
rather than depending on external help for greening its operations. In this context,
this study has the following objectives:
• To identify the internal barriers to green innovation
• To identify the hierarchal structure and relationship among these barriers
140
H. Gupta and M. K. Barua