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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework which sheds new light on how sustainability control systems (SCS) can be used in proactive strategic responses to corporate sustainability pressures.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Corporate sustainability pressures are identified using insights from institutional theory and the resource-based view of the firm.

Findings – The paper presents an integrated framework showing the corporate sustainability pressures, proactive strategic responses to these pressures, and how organizations might use SCS in their responses to the corporate sustainability pressures they face.

Practical Implications – The proposed framework shows how organizations can use SCS in proactive strategic responses to corporate sustainability pressures.

Originality/Value – The paper suggests that instead of using traditional financial-oriented management control systems, organizations need more focus on emerging SCS as a means of achieving sustainability objectives. In particular, the paper proposes different SCS tools that can be used in proactive strategic responses to sustainability pressures in terms of (i) specifying and communicating sustainability objectives, (ii) monitoring sustainability performance, and (iii) providing motivation by linking sustainability rewards to performance.

Synthesizing from the institutional theory and social network theory, this study investigates factors influencing green innovation performance in new ventures.

The findings show that the dimensions of internal social network; heterogeneous network and tie strength have significant positive effects on proactive environmental strategy based on a sample of 300 new ventures in China.

The results further support the mediating role of proactive environmental strategy on internal organizational networks and green innovation performance of new ventures. The study further investigated the moderating role of the regulatory quality as a dimension of institutional environment in China. The results show that the regulatory quality positively moderates the relationship between proactive environmental strategy and green innovation performance. Policy and managerial implications are further discussed.

Over the past 20 years, green innovation has increasingly attracted the attention of policymakers and scholars. However, most studies have focused on mature ventures, and little attention has been given to how newly established ventures attain green innovation performance.

Using the institutional and natural resource-based view theories, the purpose of this study is to examine the influence of religious, cultural and mimetic orientations on proactive environmental strategy, corporate environmental responsibility and traditional environmental strategy. Relying on data collected from managers of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the study further examines how proactive environmental strategy, corporate environmental responsibility and traditional environmental strategy drive relational capital and firm performance of SMEs operating in Ghana.

The study employed a survey research design, a quantitative approach and a partial least square structural equation modelling technique in making data analysis and interpretations due to its appropriateness for predictive research models.

The results suggest that mimetic orientation robustly and significantly influence the dimensions of environmental orientation. While religious orientation only had a robust and significant influence on proactive environmental strategy, cultural orientation robustly and significantly influences both proactive and traditional environmental strategies. Despite the positive and significant interactions that exist between proactive environmental strategy, corporate environmental responsibility, traditional environmental strategy, relational capital and firm performance, the findings particularly revealed that proactive and environmental strategies insignificantly correlated with relational capital contrary to past study findings.

The study is among the few to examine how religious, cultural and mimetic orientations interrelate with proactive and traditional environmental orientations, relational capital and firm performance in an emerging economy. Based on the findings, implications and directions for future research are discussed while also providing guidance for policymakers, regulatory bodies, scholars and practitioners.

This study aims to explore the effect of power-based behaviours on pharmaceutical supply chain (PSC) resilience.

This study used a mixed-method approach to explore the role of power-based behaviours in PSC resilience. Qualitative interviews from 23 key PSC stakeholders, followed by thematic analysis, revealed the underlying perceptions regarding PSC resilience. Quantitative propositions were then developed based on the themes adopted from PSC resilience literature and the qualitative findings. These were tested via a survey questionnaire administered to 106 key stakeholders across the various levels in the PSC. Structural equation modelling with partial least squares was used to analyse the data.

The data analysed identified proactive and reactive strategies as resilience strategies in the PSC. However, power-based behaviours represented by quota systems, information and price control influenced these resilience strategies. From a complex adaptive system (CAS) perspective, the authors found that when power-based behaviours were exhibited, the interactions between PSC actors were mixed. There was a negative influence on reactive strategies and a positive influence on proactive strategies. The analysis also showed that PSC complexities measured by stringent regulations, long lead times and complex production moderated the effect of power-based behaviour on reactive strategies. Thus, the negative impact of power-based behaviours on reactive strategies stemmed from PSC complexities.

This research particularly reveals the role of power-based behaviours in building PSC resilience. By evaluating the nexus from a CAS perspective, the analysis considered power-based behaviours and the moderating role of PSC complexities in developing resilience strategies. This study considers the interactions of PSC actors. This study shows that power asymmetry is a relational concept that inhibits the efficacy of reactive strategies. This study thus advocates the importance of power in achieving a more resilient PSC from a holistic perspective by highlighting the importance of the decision-making process among supply chain (SC) partners. The findings are particularly relevant if PSC resilience is viewed as a CAS. All the interactions and decision-making processes affect outcomes because of their inherent complexities. Although this study focused on the PSC, its implications could be extended to other SCs.

The authors identified that power-based behaviours influenced resilience strategies. It was detrimental to reactive strategies because of the complexities of the PSC but beneficial to proactive strategies through resource-sharing. PSC actors are therefore encouraged to pursue proactive strategies as this may aid in mitigating the impact of disruptions. However, power-based behaviours bred partner dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction may occur even within strategic alliances indicating that power could be detrimental to proactive strategies. Therefore, it is pertinent to identify conditions that lead to dissatisfaction when pursuing strategic partnerships. This study provides insight into actual behaviours influencing resilience and quantifies their effects on the PSC. These insights will be valuable for all SC partners wanting to improve their resilience strategies.

Previous PSC management and resilience studies have not examined the role of power in building resilience in the PSC. This paper thus provides a unique contribution by identifying the role of power in PSC resilience, offers empirical evidence and a novel theoretical perspective for future practice and research in building PSC resilience strategies.

This study aims to examine the development of dynamic capabilities and their effect on the competitive advantage of restaurants in 2009, one year after the beginning of the global financial crisis.

The restaurants were personally surveyed to discern the importance of proactive and reactive strategies for the organization. The resulting two organizational effects – cost cutting and the development of dynamic capabilities – were tested for their influence on competitive advantage.

The findings show that both proactive and reactive strategies reduce costs; however, only proactive strategies develop dynamic capabilities that improve competitive advantage.

The conclusions are drawn from a small sample of restaurants in Madrid, the capital of Spain. Given that Madrid enjoys a higher standard of living and greater business expenditures than other cities, the results may not be generalizable to the rest of the country or to other southern European capitals.

Managers must use proactive strategies for companies to survive during times of crisis. A focus on proactive strategies will improve a company’s competitive position.

Policy makers should support the development of proactive strategies and provide an adequate infrastructure of counseling and network creation.

To the best of our knowledge, no previous research specifically analyzes both the type of strategy deployed and its subsequent effect on dynamic capabilities and the consequences of the strategy on competitive advantage during a financial crisis.

This study explores the relations among corporate sustainability strategies, the intense use of sustainability control systems (SCSs) to implement these strategies and the emergence of organizational capabilities for sustainability.

Using survey data from a sample of 157 European firms across different industries, the authors explore differences between reactive and proactive sustainability strategies in their impact on the intense use of SCSs. The authors analyze the joint impact of a proactive sustainability strategy and an intense use of SCSs on the emergence of the organizational capabilities of sustainable market orientation, sustainable organizational learning and sustainable innovation. Furthermore, we explore the relevance of single levers of control for these capabilities.

The results show that a proactive sustainability strategy is associated with an intense use of SCSs and with the development of the three organizational capabilities. The authors provide evidence that the intensity of use of SCSs mediates the association between proactive sustainability strategy and the emergence of the three organizational capabilities. An interactive use of controls is constantly more important than a diagnostic use of controls in the emergence of the three capabilities.

The findings provide novel empirical evidence on the mechanisms through which corporate sustainability strategy is implemented in European organizations. The results contribute to an improved understanding of the organizational determinants underlying the development of organizational capabilities for sustainability.

This paper analyzes the mediating role of green process innovation in the relationships of green entrepreneurial orientation and proactive sustainability strategy with environmental performance.

The authors analyze data from 81 Brazilian agriculture technology startups (AgTechs) using partial least squares–structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

The results show that the green process innovation assumes an important role in AgTechs, promoting full mediations between green entrepreneurial orientation and proactive sustainability strategy with environmental performance. There are two ways for AgTechs to achieve high environmental performance. In both, green process innovation is a central condition, while green entrepreneurial orientation or proactive sustainability strategy is a complementary condition.

This study demonstrates how internal elements (green entrepreneurial orientation, proactive sustainability strategy and green process innovation) improve environmental performance. This answers calls to explore which elements translate green entrepreneurial orientation and proactive sustainability strategies into environmental performance, by highlighting the mediating role of green process innovation.

The findings are useful for founders and managers of AgTechs to find ways to manage sustainable technological advancement and cleaner production in agribusiness.

This study analyses the interface between sustainable entrepreneurship, strategy and innovation in promoting environmental performance of AgTechs from an emerging economy country.

This paper investigates the impact of green technological distance (GTD) – environmental technological knowledge distance between the firm and the industry – on the adoption of proactive and reactive environmental strategies and whether this relationship is moderated by different manifestations of green structural capital, i.e. environmental incentives, senior environmental responsibilities and external environmental communication.

The empirical analysis is conducted on a sample of 202 manufacturing companies from Spain. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the moderating effect of green structural capital.

Results show that the role of green structural capital as guiding factor of the environmental response of the firm and organizational support to cope with the GTD between the firm and the industry is diverse and depends on the manifestation of green structural capital under analysis. The establishment of environmental incentives for managers and the presence of environmental information in the firm's external communications – as two expressions of green structural capital – show a different behavior when facing the environmental technological challenge, supporting environmental reactive and proactive strategies respectively. In addition, GTD increases the adoption of reactive environmental strategies, while it has no direct effect on the implementation of proactive environmental practices.

Using the novel construct of GTD and the analysis of a so far unstudied interaction, the study contributes to the literature on intellectual capital and environmental strategy considering the technical change associated to the environmental challenge. In so doing, it improves the understanding of the role of green structural capital as a guiding factor of the environmental response of the firm and organizational support to cope with the GTD between the firm and the industry.

Planning inventories for emergency supplies such as bottled water, non‐perishable foods, batteries, and flashlights can be challenging for retailers situated within the projected path of a severe storm. The retailer's inventory decisions are complicated by the inherent volatility of storm forecasts and the corresponding demand predictions. The purpose of this paper is to explore both proactive and reactive inventory control policies within the context of probable pre‐storm demand surge for a fast‐moving emergency supply item, and identify the conditions that are most conducive to each strategy according to the minimax decision criterion.

The inventory system is formulated based on an underlying economic order quantity framework. Minimax decision rules are developed analytically. Sensitivity analysis is facilitated by both analytic and numerical methods.

The conditions that are conducive to a proactive ordering strategy are limited supplier flexibility, acute demand surge, and exorbitant reorder costs; otherwise, the minimax inventory control policy is given by a reactive ordering strategy.

The above‐mentioned findings are based on a stylized inventory model characterized by assumptions that are consistent with the academic literature. In order to assess the implications of these results in practice, the model should be extended according to the relevance of each assumption to specific real‐world inventory systems.

Householders preparing for probable evacuation or post‐storm power outages typically overwhelm grocery and home improvement stores during a brief period prior to the impact of an approaching weather system. This phenomenon triggers a temporary spike in demand for several stock keeping units, which is oftentimes accompanied by pervasive inventory shortages that proliferate community vulnerability and engender a sense of disarray throughout the local populace. Effective inventory management of emergency supply items during this period can help alleviate some of these social dilemmas.

Few academic publications address inventory management from the perspective of humanitarian relief. Among existing studies, the emphasis has been coordination of emergency supplies for post‐disaster relief and recovery activities. This paper appears to be the first academic investigation of an inventory system driven by the pre‐storm demand surge for emergency supplies that typically occurs in the presence of an ominous and potentially devastating weather system. Additionally, this study conceivably represents the first minimax distribution free approach to inventory control within the context of humanitarian logistics and disruption management.

Negotiators are offered limited advice on how to overcome adverse events. Drawing on resilience and coping literatures, this study aims to test the impact of three cognitive processing strategies on negotiators’ subjective and economic value following adversity.

Participants completed two negotiations with the same partner. The difficulty of the first negotiation was manipulated and tested how cognitive processing of this experience influenced subjective and economic outcomes in the second negotiation.

Subjective and economic outcomes were predicted by negotiators’ affect, their cognitive processing strategy and negotiation difficulty. In difficult negotiations, as positive affect increased, proactive processing decreased self-satisfaction. As negative affect increased, affective processing increased satisfaction with relationship and process.

Cognitive processing of adversity is most effective when emotions are not running high and better able to protect relationship- and process-oriented satisfaction than outcome-oriented satisfaction. The findings apply to one specific type of adversity and to circumstances that do not generate strong emotions.

This research tests which of three cognitive processing strategies is best able to prevent the aftermath of a difficult negotiation from spilling over into subsequent negotiations. Two forms of proactive processing are more effective than immersive processing in mitigating the consequences.