Mimetic Pressures and Environmental Performance: Mediating Role of Internal Environmental Management

Abstract

During the last century, the growth of industrialization has put enormous pressures on the virgin natural resources of this mother planet. Manufacturing companies need to upgrade their working practices that are less damaging to the environment under different compulsions. The institutional theory states that imitating the already proven processes of leaders in the specific industry is called the mimetic pressures. Small and medium enterprises (SME’s) try to adopt already proven successful processes and technologies by industry leaders to improve their environmental performance without taking high financial risks specifically in the developing countries. To test all above-stated assumptions a conceptual model is proposed and a survey was conducted to collect data from SME’s of three industrial cities of Pakistan. The conceptual model of this study is tested with the help of collected data from 163 manufacturing SME’s through partial least squared (PLS) based structural equation modeling (SEM). The results of the study confirmed a direct effect of mimetic pressures on internal environmental management (IEM) and full mediation of IEM between mimetic pressures and eco-design practices of green supply chain management. Results also proved the significant positive impact of eco-design on environmental performance but no direct effect of IEM is proved significant. Managerial implications and limitations are presented at the end.