4. Discussion
4.1. Theoretical contributions
Based on the extant literature, firms are pressured to identify business practices that enhance not only their competitive advantage and economic performance, but also their environmental performance (Chiou et al., 2011). Hence, aggressively pursuing the adoption and implementation of environmental friendly activities, such as green innovation practices, is becoming crucial as firms are faced with internal and external pressure to engage in such activities. The adoption of green product innovation and green process innovation involve reduction in consumption of energy and pollution emission, recycling of wastes, sustainable utilization of resources, and green product designs. Understanding the drivers of green innovation practices is essential as indicated by several recent studies. The benefits of adopting environmental friendly activities have been examined in the literature. In order to overcome the technological challenges of green innovation, previous studies have suggested that higher firm performance and competitive advantage through green practices may not be attained without management commitment, proper HR practices, and use of large scale data (Chatterjee et al., 2002; Gunasekaran et al., 2017).
This study determines the importance of the drivers of green innovation and its influence on competitive advantage, environmental and organizational performance. Several drivers have been identified in the literature which include corporate environmental ethics, stakeholders view and market demand (Chang, 2011; Lin et al., 2013; Weng et al., 2015; Zailani et al., 2015). In addition, the role of large scale data, management commitment, and human resource practices were examined as they play an important role to overcome the technological challenges, achieve competitive advantage, and enhance the economic and environmental performance. A holistic model that depicts and examines the relationships among green innovation, its drivers, as well as factors that help overcome the technological challenges and influence the performance and competitive advantage of the firm was developed and tested empirically. Using data collected from a sample of 215 MENA region and GCC firms, the proposed relationships were tested.
