How does green intellectual capital boost performance? The mediating role of environmental performance measurement systems

This paper draws on the newly developed notion of “natural resource orchestration” to propose and test a framework that shows how the use of environmental performance measurement systems mobilizes green intellectual capital to influence organizational performance. More precisely, this study examines to what extent companies place emphasis on the use of environmental performance measurement to translate green intellectual capital into enhanced organizational performance in terms of both economic and environmental performance. Based on a survey of 105 Iranian public listed companies, the results show that two elements of green intellectual capital, namely, green human capital and green structural capital are positively associated with both environmental performance measurement use and environmental performance. In contrast, green relational capital affects environmental performance only in the presence of environmental performance measurement as a mediating variable. By embedding the resource orchestration theory in the management accounting and intellectual capital settings, this study contributes to the existing literature and sheds light on the issue of how companies need to synchronize their green resources with proper organizational control systems to reap the maximum benefits of those green strategic resources.