British Journal of Management, Vol.

29, 634–651 (2018)

DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12255

Stakeholder Corporate Social Responsibility

Orientation Congruence, Entrepreneurial
Orientation and Environmental
Performance of Chinese Small
and Medium-sized Enterprises
Zhi Tang and Jintong Tang1
Saunders College of Business, Rochester Institute of Technology, Max Lowenthal Building, Office 2327 107
Lomb Memorial Dr, Rochester, NY 14623, USA, and 1 John Cook School of Business, Saint Louis University,
3674 Lindell Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63108, USA
Corresponding author email: ztang@saunders.rit.edu

Stakeholder studies have discovered that strong stakeholder corporate social responsi-
bility (CSR) orientation can motivate firms to engage better in environmental activities.
However, when multiple stakeholders are involved, strong yet incongruent stakeholder
pressure may not lead to improved environmental performance. The authors integrate
complexity science with stakeholder management theory to address this issue. Using a
sample of 149 Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises, they find that the average
stakeholder’s CSR orientation improves environmental strengths, but generates an in-
verted U-shaped relationship with environmental concerns. Further, results indicate that
the congruence in stakeholders’ CSR orientation enhances this inverted U-shaped rela-
tionship, and that the moderating impact of congruence is weaker when entrepreneurial
orientation is higher.

Introduction ies supported these propositions (e.g. Chiu and

Stakeholder management theory has been one of
the primary theories used to explain organizations’
motivation to engage in environmental activities
(Agle, Mitchell and Sonnenfeld, 1999; Bridoux
and Stoelhorst, 2014; Cordeiro and Tewari,
2015; Frooman, 1999). The consensus is that the
increased stakeholder pressure will effectively
discourage firms’ irresponsible behaviors and
enhance firms’ contributions to the environment
(Agle, Mitchell and Sonnenfeld, 1999). However,
studies employing this framework to explain firms’
environmental performance have generated mixed
results. While a large number of stakeholder stud-
The second author would like to acknowledge the fi-
nancial support provided by National Natural Science
Foundation of China (NSFC grants # 71532005 and
71628204).
Wang, 2015; Cordeiro and Tewari, 2015; Maignan
and Ralston, 2002; McCarthy and Puffer, 2008;
Weaver, Trevino and Cochran, 1999; Williamson,
Lynch-Wood and Ramsay, 2006), existing re-
search also found an insignificant (McWilliams
and Siegel, 2000) or even negative relationship
(Tang and Tang, 2012) between stakeholders’
influence and firm environmental performance.
In an effort to account for this discrepancy,
scholars proposed that the ‘degree to which differ-
ent stakeholders hold firms’ engagement in corpo-
rate social responsibility (CSR) as important’ (i.e.
stakeholder CSR orientation) may vary because
stakeholders are driven by different agendas and
constrained in different institutional environments
(Tang and Tang, 2012, p. 436). Stakeholder CSR
(i.e. corporate social responsibility) orientation
has effectively helped to explain why a stakeholder
exerts differential impact on firms’ environmental

© 2017 British Academy of Management. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4
2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.

Stakeholder CSR Orientation Congruence
performance in different contexts. For example,
governments in mature economies may have a
higher CSR orientation than their counterparts in
emerging economies due to a stronger economic
motive present in the latter economies. Hence,
governments in mature economies tend to use a
larger portion of their power to promote their
social, including environmental, agenda.
What is missing in stakeholder CSR orientation
research, however, is that it falls short in explain-
ing how various stakeholders, possessing different
levels of CSR orientations, can jointly affect a
firm’s environmental performance. By ‘jointly’, we
emphasize that considering individual stakehold-
ers alone is insufficient to explain the environment
where firms operate. As any stakeholder’s individ-
ual impact can be enhanced or reduced by other
stakeholders, the features of multiple stakeholders
should be taken into account simultaneously when
modeling firm environmental behaviors. In order
to fill this gap, we integrate the complexity science
perspective with stakeholder management theory
to propose two concepts: (1) average stakeholder
CSR orientation (orientation average, or OA),
i.e. the average level of the CSR orientations
of multiple stakeholders; and (2) congruence in
stakeholder CSR orientation (orientation con-
gruence, or OC), i.e. similarity among the degrees
to which different stakeholders hold firms’ CSR
engagement as important. We aim to address
two research questions. First, we examine how
OA affects a focal firm’s environmental strengths
(i.e. firms’ contributions to the environment) and
concerns (i.e. firms’ damage to the environment).
A nascent development in CSR literature (e.g.
Strike, Gao and Bansal, 2006) suggests that envi-
ronmental strengths and concerns are not mirror
reflections of each other, i.e. they are not two
extremities along the continuum of one construct.
Rather, a firm can exhibit high levels of strengths
and concerns simultaneously. Thus, in this paper
we examine environmental strengths and concerns
separately, for a complete overview of Chinese
small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs)
environmental performance.
Second, we explore how OC and entrepreneurial
orientation (EO) modify the above relationships
for Chinese SMEs. Following previous research
(Covin and Slevin, 1988, p. 218), we define EO
as the extent to which ‘top managers are inclined
to take business-related risks, to favor change
and innovation in order to obtain a competitive
© 2017 British Academy of Management.
14678551, 2018, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12255 by Zhejiang University, Wiley Online Library on [28/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
635
advantage for their firm, and to compete ag-
gressively with other firms’. The average level of
multiple stakeholders’ CSR orientations indicates
a society’s general attitude toward firms’ social
performance. A low average level will impose little
pressure on a firm to improve its social perfor-
mance. Additionally, whether these orientations
are converged or diverged indicates whether
opportunities exist for a firm to take advantage
of. For instance, if different stakeholders hold the
importance of CSR differently, opportunities may
exist for a firm to counter the pressure to engage
in social activities. When it happens, a firm’s EO
can help determine whether it will take advantage
of such opportunities, because higher EO enables
firms to seek loopholes in the environment and
counter the external pressure better. Thus, in
the current research, we integrate the average
stakeholder CSR orientation, congruence in
stakeholder CSR orientation and EO to examine
comprehensively how Chinese SMEs interact with
multiple stakeholders simultaneously to shape
their environmental performance.
The current study makes several contributions
to stakeholder management theory and CSR re-
search. First, we extend the investigation of CSR
orientation from one stakeholder to multiple
stakeholders. This extension more accurately re-
flects the reality of the organizational operating en-
vironment and better addresses the discrepancies
in previous CSR studies. For example, when stake-
holders place different priorities on environmental
issues, i.e. the CSR OC of multiple stakeholders is
low, opportunities will emerge for firms to maneu-
ver among these different expectations. Therefore,
by taking two more dimensions of stakeholders –
the average and congruence of CSR orientations of
multiple stakeholders – into the stakeholder frame-
work and examining their interactions, we are able
to tap into the complexity of the relationships be-
tween the CSR orientations of different stakehold-
ers and firm environmental performance.
Furthering this line of logic, we examine how
environmental strengths and environmental con-
cerns may vary. The underlying assumption in pre-
vious CSR research is that improving environmen-
tal strengths will suppress concerns, and that firms
will contribute to either environmental strengths
or concerns, but not both simultaneously. Accord-
ing to this assumption, if environmental concerns
and strengths coexist, organizational identity will
be blurred and key stakeholders will be disoriented

636
with organizations’ values and priorities (Corley
and Gioia, 2004), which in turn damages the firm’s
competitive advantage. However, this simplified
perspective fails to account for the reality that
firms often conduct socially responsible and irre-
sponsible behaviors simultaneously (e.g. Mattingly
and Berman, 2006; Muller and Kraussl, 2011).
Thus, examining how the average and the congru-
ence of multiple stakeholders’ CSR orientations
impact environmental strengths and concerns dif-
ferentially provides a promising path to account
for this discrepancy.
Lastly, we extend the application of stakeholder
theory to entrepreneurship research in China.
The majority of stakeholder studies have focused
on large, western firms, yet the investigation of
entrepreneurial firms’ social performance in an
emerging economic context has been very rare.
However, the incongruence in stakeholder CSR
orientations can be a more acute issue in an emerg-
ing economy such as China where the economic
motives overshadow the social motives (Tang,
Tang and Katz, 2014). Under the circumstances
that incongruent stakeholder orientations exist, as
entrepreneurial firms are more proactive in iden-
tifying external opportunities and sensing future
development in the external environment (Saeed,
Yousafzai and Engelen, 2014), they may be more
prone to take advantage of this incongruence in or-
der to lead the market trend. Thus, in the current
research, we probe how EO interacts with the aver-
age of and the congruence in stakeholder CSR ori-
entations to impact environmental strengths and
concerns of Chinese SMEs.
Next we review stakeholder management theory
and develop hypotheses. Three studies were con-
ducted to validate our measures and test these hy-
potheses. Conclusions and implications are pro-
vided at the end.
Theoretical background
Incongruent stakeholder expectations
Originated by Freeman (1984) and furthered by
Mitchell, Agle and Wood (1997) and Frooman
(1999), stakeholder management theory posits that
a firm is the hub of a wheel, and that stakehold-
ers, ‘any group or individual who can affect or is
affected by the achievement of the firm’s objec-
tives’ (Freeman, 1984, p. 25), are at the ends of
spokes around the wheel. In this hub-and-spoke
14678551, 2018, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12255 by Zhejiang University, Wiley Online Library on [28/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Z. Tang and J. Tang
conceptualization, a firm strives to cater to the
needs of various stakeholders as it relies on them
for necessary resources (Bridoux and Stoelhorst,
2014). As most stakeholders’ concerns extend be-
yond the mere financial gains of the company
(Campbell, 2007), stakeholder pressure is a major
motivator for a firm to engage in environmental
activities (Wolf, 2014). However, previous stake-
holder studies have focused primarily on the im-
pact of individual stakeholders on the focal firm’s
social performance. Even in studies that exam-
ine multiple stakeholders, the influence of each
stakeholder is investigated separately. It remains
unknown how multiple stakeholders, with differ-
ent CSR orientations, can jointly impact the focal
firm’s environmental performance.
Nascent CSR studies further hinted that the pre-
vious assumption that stakeholders universally ad-
vocate for social causes may not stand true. For
example, the media can motivate a firm to be-
have responsibly in one context (Henriques and
Sadorsky, 1999), but irresponsibly in another con-
text (Tang and Tang, 2012), which highlights the
possibility that stakeholders in different situations
may define appropriate behaviors differently. In-
deed, stakeholders’ agendas can vary with the na-
tional or industrial context (Maignan and Ralston,
2002), the size and the age of the firm under inves-
tigation (Jenkins, 2006; Williamson, Lynch-Wood
and Ramsay, 2006), the type of the social perfor-
mance examined (Muller and Kraussl, 2011), the
diversification of the firm (Kang, 2013), or sim-
ply whether or not the stakeholder cares about
social fairness (Bridoux and Stoelhorst, 2014;
Soundararajan and Brown, 2016). When different
stakeholders regard the importance of social goals
differently, a firm will perceive complex, rather
than linear, pressure from the stakeholders, and
thus may find it necessary to justify both responsi-
ble and irresponsible behaviors. The dynamic in-
teractions among multiple stakeholders can also
increase the complexity of organizational strat-
egy (Besiou, Hunter and van Wassenhove., 2013;
Garcia-Castro and Francoeur, 2016). A case in
point is that, as a firm’s internationalization ex-
pands, the firm finds it necessary to engage in both
socially responsible and irresponsible behaviors in
order to adapt to various global standards (Strike,
Gao and Bansal, 2006).
Building on this line of nascent research,
we extend the traditional stakeholder manage-
ment framework by introducing the complexity
© 2017 British Academy of Management.

Stakeholder CSR Orientation Congruence
perspective into the model. The science of com-
plexity suggests that, in general, the interaction
between a firm and a wider stakeholder system
demonstrates a non-linear network feedback sys-
tem (Gleick, 1987; Stacey, 1995; Waldrop, 1992).
In order to maximize the effectiveness of this sys-
tem and optimize the interaction in relation to this
system, there should be a match between the com-
plexity of internal organizational arrangements
and the complexity of the external environment.
For example, when external uncertainty surges,
which could be caused by the unpredictability
of the interactions between various stakeholders
or the increased complexity of the predictable
interactions of these stakeholders, a firm should
correspondingly increase its organizational com-
plexity (e.g. complexity in organizational structure
and processes) to absorb the external uncertainty,
which in turn will contribute to firm performance
(Schneider, Wickert and Marti, 2017). Fernhaber
and Patel (2012) found that entertaining both
explorative and exploitative strategic activities
can enhance the benefits of product portfolio
complexity. Similarly, Lichtenstein et al. (2007)
found that, as multiple demands pulled a startup
in different directions, engaging in a variety of
activities helped the firm to manage complicated
stakeholder demands and increased the likelihood
of new venture creation.
Applying the same logic, we propose that, when
various levels of stakeholder CSR orientation are
perceived, firms’ engagement in both environmen-
tal strengths and concerns is likely to increase.
Modeling on previous complexity studies (e.g.
Bourgeois, 1985; Tang et al., 2010), we investigate
this issue through the angle of both the average and
the congruence of stakeholder CSR orientation.
A high level of average stakeholder CSR orienta-
tion (OA) indicates that stakeholders value social
goals over financial goals and thus are more likely
to use their power to achieve their social agenda.
The congruence in stakeholder CSR orientation
(OC) determines whether chances exist for firms to
counter stakeholders’ social pressure.
Hypotheses development
Relationship between the OA and environmental
strengths and concerns
In this study, we focus on five external stakehold-
ers in China: (1) governments who control land,
© 2017 British Academy of Management.
14678551, 2018, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12255 by Zhejiang University, Wiley Online Library on [28/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
637
financial system and administrative resources
such as licenses; (2) competitors who jointly form
the industry norms and directly affect the focal
firm’s strategies; (3) customers who determine the
revenue flow to the firm; (4) the media that can
drastically change a firm’s reputation perceived by
other stakeholders; and (5) suppliers who contin-
uously provide the input necessary for a firm’s op-
eration. We chose these five stakeholders because
a large body of research has identified them as
the most influential stakeholders in driving orga-
nizations’ social performance (e.g. Agle, Mitchell
and Sonnenfeld, 1999; Henriques and Sadorsky,
1999; Jenkins, 2006; Maignan and Ralston, 2002;
McCarthy and Puffer, 2008; Murillo and Lozano,
2006; Weaver, Trevino and Cochran, 1999;
Williamson, Lynch-Wood and Ramsay, 2006).
With regard to OA, we propose that, the higher
the OA, the higher the environmental strengths of
Chinese SMEs. Previous stakeholder management
studies have established that, when external stake-
holders prefer that firms perform well environ-
mentally, firms will be under enormous pressure
to comply (Kassinis and Vafeas, 2006). The same
logic applies to the Chinese context as well. For ex-
ample, Chinese governments are often considered
the most influential in affecting SMEs’ operations,
owing to their control of the land, taxes and fees,
and finances (Luo, 2006). Therefore, the govern-
ments in China can implement their environmen-
tal standards and requirements in a more direct
and effective manner than their western counter-
parts. Furthermore, although competition is cut-
throat, competitors are able jointly to form the
industry norm that rewards the good deed and
maintains the environmental standards of the in-
dustry (Murillo and Lozano, 2006; Perrini, 2006).
Suppliers and customers control the supply and
demand of the market and are both essential to
maintain a firm as an ongoing entity. They have
the power to walk away from firms that are not
environmentally friendly, i.e. vote by feet (Esty
and Winston, 2006). Thus when suppliers and
customers demand better environmental perfor-
mance, the firm will be pressured to respond ac-
cordingly. Lastly, when the media, the distributors
of social values (Walgrave and Aelst, 2006), pro-
mote environmental behaviors and benefits and
closely screen firms’ environmental activities, firms
will be more likely to engage in environmen-
tally contributing activities. Overall, when on aver-
age stakeholders demand improved environmental

638
performance, firms will strive to enhance their en-
vironmental strengths.
H1: A higher level of OA will lead to improved
environmental strengths of Chinese SMEs.
We further propose that OA exhibits an inverse
U-shaped relationship with environmental con-
cerns of Chinese SMEs. China is known for its
struggle between the goals for economic growth
and the need to improve the environmental stan-
dard. As a result, Chinese firms are left on their
own to interpret the conflicting messages from
multiple stakeholders. Initially, an increase in OA
can be viewed as mere political propaganda rather
than a genuine enforcement of a new standard.
For instance, the 1980s in China were marked
by a series of new environmental laws, policies
and regulations, yet they were largely viewed
as mere gestures to appease public outcry (Li
and Atuahene-Gima, 2001). As a matter of fact,
China’s pollution (e.g. green gas emission, smog,
water pollution and dust storms) has been rising
acutely since then (Andrews, 2008/2009). Further-
more, environmental protection is a function of
affordability, especially for SMEs (Kassinis and
Vafeas, 2006). Chinese SMEs are known to have
ultra-low net profit margins, around 3% (Qin,
2011), compared with above 10% for western
SMEs (Houston, 2017). Therefore, any extra
expenses necessary to increase environmental
strengths will have to be offset somewhere else
(e.g. activities increasing concerns).
When OA has just begun to increase, Chinese
SMEs will perceive such a pressure as window
dressing, a mask for the true economic motives,
based on their prior experience (Frooman, 1999).
In response, firms may spare some resources on
strengths just to ‘showcase’ their green efforts.
Meanwhile, they have to increase environmental
concerns in order to offset the costs of such green
efforts. For example, it is noted that firms invest
in environmental equipment in one factory, yet in-
crease pollution in another factory at a different
location (Gao et al., 2013). It is also revealed that
firms only control pollution in the very last step
of their production to appease government inspec-
tors, while increasing pollution in other steps of
the process (Yan, Liu and Guo, 2011). As firms are
uncertain whether stakeholders are seriously com-
mitting to their new standards, they will choose
to engage in both environmental strengths and
14678551, 2018, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12255 by Zhejiang University, Wiley Online Library on [28/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Z. Tang and J. Tang
concerns in order to greenwash their image and
to cut their operating costs simultaneously. Only
when OA mounts to a certain inflection point
will firms start to feel the real pressure and be
prompted to take efforts effectively to reduce en-
vironmental concerns.
H2: OA has an inverse U-shaped relationship
with the environmental concerns of Chinese
SMEs.
Moderating effect of the OC
In this section, we propose that OC moderates the
relationship between OA and firms’ environmen-
tal performance. In particular, when OC is high,
i.e. the degrees to which different stakeholders hold
firms’ CSR engagement as important are simi-
lar to one another, the positive effect of OA on
firms’ environmental strengths will be enhanced.
Stakeholder complexity perspective indicates that,
when stakeholders’ expectations are consistent, the
external complexity will be perceived low, and
a firm’s strategic choice will be less complex –
just to be in alignment with external expectations
(Schneider, Wickert and Marti, 2017; Walters and
Bhuian, 2004). As stakeholders agree on the im-
portance of environmental goals, it will be eas-
ier for firms to set and maintain their organi-
zational goals, i.e. goals that are consistent with
external stakeholders’ environmental agenda. A
stable organizational goal system can facilitate the
process of resource allocation, which enables firms
to focus on achieving these goals efficiently (Tang
et al., 2010). In our case, when external stakehold-
ers unanimously agree on the importance of envi-
ronmental contributions (i.e. when OC is high), the
firm will be under tremendous pressure to take the
stakeholders’ agenda more seriously and to focus
more on their environmental strengths. This will
enhance the positive effect of OA on environmen-
tal strengths of Chinese SMEs.
H3: OC positively moderates the relationship
between OA and Chinese SMEs’ environmental
strengths such that the positive relationship will
be stronger when OC is higher.
We also expect that the inverse U-shaped relation-
ship between OA and Chinese SMEs’ environmen-
tal concerns will be enhanced when OC is higher.
In particular, when external stakeholders have low
© 2017 British Academy of Management.

Stakeholder CSR Orientation Congruence
and congruent CSR orientations, firms’ environ-
mental concerns will rise faster because it signals to
firms that stakeholders unanimously believe that
environmental goals are not as important as other
goals. This will reassure firms that the environmen-
tal agenda is ranked low among stakeholders, and
it should be merely for window-dressing purposes
(Frooman, 1999). As a result, firms will be encour-
aged to sacrifice environmental interests for eco-
nomic or other interests, which will lead to faster
increase in environmental concerns. Under the cir-
cumstances that the CSR orientations of external
stakeholders are high and congruent, firms will
sense the genuine pressure for reducing their ir-
responsible activities. As a result, environmental
concerns will be reduced faster as firms exert extra
efforts to attend to their environmentally damag-
ing behaviors.
In contrast, when the CSR orientations of ex-
ternal stakeholders are incongruent, the inverse
U-shaped relationship between OA and environ-
mental concerns will be less acute. Incongruence
among stakeholders’ CSR orientations indicates
that the degrees to which stakeholders hold firms’
engagement in CSR as important vary. Firms
will then perceive inconsistent requirements from
stakeholders (Jay, 2013), which will lead to dis-
orientation of their strategic options (Corley and
Gioia, 2004). In particular, firms will be torn be-
tween what they should do (to appease stakehold-
ers with higher CSR orientation) and what they
can do (to satisfy stakeholders with lower CSR ori-
entation) (Philippe and Koehler, 2005), which will
lead to less-effective resource allocation. As a re-
sult, firms will not be able to devote full atten-
tion to either increasing or decreasing environmen-
tal concerns. Hence, when OC is low, the inverted
U-shaped relationship between the OA and envi-
ronmental concerns will be mitigated.
H4: OC positively moderates the relationship
between OA and Chinese SMEs’ environmen-
tal concerns such that the inverse U-shaped re-
lationship will be stronger when OC is higher.
Moderating effect of EO
We further propose a three-way interaction among
OA, OC and EO in predicting environmental
strengths and concerns of Chinese SMEs. As
EO enables firms to identify opportunities and
to take actions on these opportunities, including
© 2017 British Academy of Management.
14678551, 2018, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12255 by Zhejiang University, Wiley Online Library on [28/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
639
opportunities of institutional loopholes (Covin
and Slevin, 1988, 1991), the level of EO deter-
mines whether a firm will be able to recognize
and capitalize on incongruent situations. Specif-
ically, when OC is low (i.e. stakeholders do not
agree on the importance of environmental protec-
tion), high-EO firms are more likely to recognize
this incongruence situation and the opportunities
embedded within (Covin and Slevin, 1991). With
regard to environmental strengths, high-EO firms
will quickly realize that incongruence signals that
some stakeholders take environmental issues more
seriously and place environmental issues on their
top agenda. While other firms are still trying to fig-
ure out how to respond to the inconsistent expecta-
tions, high-EO firms will have already attempted to
set the future standard and agenda for their com-
petitors by shifting their focus to improving envi-
ronmental strengths. This will reinforce the effect
of OA on environmental strengths. With regard
to environmental concerns, low OC allows high-
EO firms to take advantage of the loopholes in
the current stakeholder system by increasing their
environmental concerns. Previous research docu-
mented that entrepreneurial firms are especially
capable of navigating the ‘muddy’ institutional re-
quirements in China to enhance their chance of
survival (e.g. Tang, Tang and Katz, 2014). For ex-
ample, in China, while environmental laws and reg-
ulations are made by the central environmental bu-
reau, the enforcement and inspection is conducted
by local governments (Wang, 2016). As local gov-
ernments often prioritize job creation and GDP
growth, proactive entrepreneurial firms can ‘lobby’
local governments to be lenient in enforcing these
laws or to weaken the consequences of environ-
mental violations (e.g. delaying fines or allowing
them to shut down temporarily and reopen later
without major alteration of the production pro-
cess). Thus, high EO may lead to the increase in
concerns, at least temporarily, which strengthens
the curvilinear relationship between OA and envi-
ronmental concerns.
In contrast, when OC is high (i.e. stakeholders
unanimously favor the environmental agenda, and
it becomes clear to all firms that this is the indus-
try norm), firms with high EO will seek alterna-
tive routes, rather than environmental strengths,
to differentiate themselves in competition, be-
cause being environmental friendly no longer sets
them apart from peers. Following the same logic
that entrepreneurial firms tend to challenge the

640
status quo instead of simply following the trend
(Covin and Slevin, 1991), the congruence situa-
tion will induce high-EO firms to exhibit two be-
havioral patterns: not engaging in environmental
strengths as much as they should, since strengths
are no longer an obvious differentiation factor;
and resisting stakeholder pressure on reducing
concerns, because high-EO firms are known for be-
ing proactive in countering stakeholders’ power in
order to pursue their own goals (Tang and Tang,
2012). Under these circumstances, the effect of
OA on both strengths and concerns will not be
as strong for high-EO firms as for low-EO firms.
Summarizing the above discussion, we believe
that EO can alter the moderating impacts of OC
on both the OA–strengths and the OA–concerns
relationships.
H5: There is a three-way interaction among
OA, OC and EO in predicting environmental
strengths. In particular, in the context of high
EO, the OA–environmental strengths relation-
ship will be stronger when OC is low as opposed
to high.
H6: There is a three-way interaction among
OA, OC and EO in predicting environmental
concerns. In particular, in the context of high
EO, the OA–environmental concerns relation-
ship will be stronger when OC is low as opposed
to high.
Methodology
We conducted three studies in China to test
our theoretical model. First, we interviewed ten
Chinese SME owners to validate the face value of
the measures used in this study. We then surveyed
40 Chinese SMEs initially to validate our key
measures. The main study included 300 firms
randomly selected from the suppliers for one of
the largest chemical product companies in China.
This sample is appropriate for our study because
single-industry studies are highly recommended
for environmental research, as they can effectively
eliminate the noise created by different industrial
environments (Russo and Fouts, 1997). Fur-
thermore, the CEO of the company had a keen
interest in our study and agreed to help facilitate
the data-collection process and triangulate the
responses from the firms.
14678551, 2018, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12255 by Zhejiang University, Wiley Online Library on [28/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Z. Tang and J. Tang
We mailed the questionnaire to the owners
or top executives of the 300 SMEs. Among the
300 firms, approximately 100 firms were randomly
selected and asked to have at least two top man-
agement team members respond to the survey. We
received 232 surveys from 161 firms, among which
70 firms had at least two top management team
members independently respond to the survey. We
conducted inter-rater reliability analysis on these
70 firms and the intraclass correlation (1, k) was
0.78 among the informants (Shrout and Fleiss,
1979). Following prior studies, we used the average
of the multiple responses from each firm as the en-
try for that firm in the analysis (Bourgeois, 1985).
Twelve firms did not provide complete responses
to the survey, leaving 149 firms in our final sample.
ANOVA was conducted, and no significant differ-
ence was found in our key variables as a result of
deletion of these 12 firms.
Measures. All measures employed in the study
were established by previous studies. We adopted
the Kinder, Environmental, Social and Gover-
nance (ESG) environmental scale to measure
environmental strengths and concerns. This
environmental performance scale includes two
dimensions, with seven items for strengths and
seven for concerns, ranging from −2 ‘strongly
disagree’ to 2 ‘strongly agree’. Entrepreneurial
orientation was measured with the 9-item scale
developed by Miller (1983) and validated by
Covin and Slevin (1989). We employed the same
4-item stakeholder CSR orientation measure as
developed by Tang and Tang (2012). All items are
summarized in Appendix 1.
We entered the arithmetic average of the items
for environmental strengths, concerns and EO
into analysis as the measures for these variables.
We averaged the four CSR orientation items for
each stakeholder to measure this particular stake-
holder’s CSR orientation. Then, the average of
these five stakeholder CSR orientation variables
was entered into regression to reflect the average
stakeholder CSR orientation (OA). We employed
the standard deviation of the five stakeholder CSR
orientation measures to assess the congruence in
stakeholder CSR orientation (OC). Standard de-
viation has been widely used in complexity sci-
ence research to measure the spread of variabil-
ity of multiple variables (Bourgeois, 1985; Weiss,
2004). Higher values indicate higher variabil-
ity of the CSR orientations among stakeholders
© 2017 British Academy of Management.

Stakeholder CSR Orientation Congruence
(i.e. low congruence). We subtracted the stan-
dard deviation from 10 so that higher values indi-
cate higher congruence among stakeholders’ CSR
orientations.
Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and the
two-step analysis suggested by Anderson and
Gerbing (1988) were conducted to ensure the va-
lidity of the key measures. Furthermore, 11 covari-
ates were controlled in our analysis because previ-
ous studies suggest that they have an influence on
our proposed relationships.
Analysis and results. Table 1 shows the means,
standard deviations and correlations of the vari-
ables included in our model. Table 2 shows the re-
gression results with environmental strengths and
concerns as the dependent variable, respectively.
We employed multi-level linear regression to test
our hypotheses with all interaction items mean-
centered. Model 1 included all control variables
to provide a baseline model. Model 2 included
OA, and showed that OA had a positive relation-
ship with environment strengths (β = 0.36, p <
0.001); supporting Hypothesis 1. Model 3 added
all two-way interaction items and showed no sup-
port for Hypothesis 3 (β = −.10, p > 0.05 for
OA*OC). Model 4 added the three-way interac-
tion, and showed that it significantly affected envi-
ronmental strengths (β = −0.30, p < 0.001), sup-
porting Hypothesis 5.
The three-way interaction involving OA, OC
and EO is depicted in Figure 1. In support of Hy-
pothesis 5, the difference in the relationship be-
tween OA and strengths when OC is high vs. low is
more pronounced when EO is high (slopes 1 and 3)
than when EO is low (slopes 2 and 4). Indeed, an
analysis of simple slopes revealed that the interac-
tion of OA and OC is significant when EO is high
(t = 3.30, p < 0.001), but not significant when EO
is low (t = 1.49, p > 0.10).
Model 5 included all control variables, and
Model 6 added OA and its square term. Model 7
showed that the squared term of OA had a neg-
ative relationship with environmental concerns
(β = −0.17, p < 0.1), marginally supporting
Hypothesis 2. Model 7 further added all two-way
interaction items, and it showed that the coefficient
for OA2 *OC was negative and significant (β =
−0.19, p < 0.05). Thus, Hypothesis 4 is supported.
Finally, Model 8 added three-way interaction
items, and their coefficients were insignificant
(β = −0.07, p > 0.05 for OA*OC*EO; β = 0.08,
© 2017 British Academy of Management.
14678551, 2018, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12255 by Zhejiang University, Wiley Online Library on [28/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
641
p > 0.05 for OA2 *OC*EO). Thus, Hypothesis 6 is
not supported.
To understand the nature of the quadratic two-
way interaction between OA and OC, we plot
Figure 2, which reveals that the curvilinear rela-
tionship between OA and concerns depends on
whether stakeholders’ CSR orientations are con-
gruent. The relation between OA and concerns fol-
lows an inverted U-shape (i.e. environmental con-
cerns increase when OA ranges from low-end to
moderate level; while high-end OA will effectively
reduce environmental concern) when OC is high.
When OC is low, however, the OA–environmental
concerns curve is mitigated in such a way that dra-
matic increments in environmental concerns disap-
pear when OA ranges from low to moderate levels.
In fact, the inverted U-shape is almost turning into
a U-shape.
We ran a series of post hoc analyses to check
the robustness of our results. We conducted the
Johnson–Neyman analysis (Pollack, Vanepps and
Hayes, 2012) and found that, when EO, the mean-
centered value, was higher than 0.01, its impact on
the moderating effect of OC on the OA–strengths
relationship would be significant. Similarly, it also
showed when OC, the mean-centered value, was
higher than 0.09, it could significantly alter the
curvilinear relationship between OA and concerns.
The Johnson–Neyman technique thus provides
richer information regarding the moderating ef-
fects that are specific to the moderator values in
our sample.
Further, in order to mitigate the effect of com-
mon method bias, we adopted a variety of mea-
sures recommended by Podsakoff, MacKenzie and
Podsakoff (2012). We also ran an extra analysis, as
presented in Table 2, with the 70 firms that have
multiple responses, and the results were similar
to those reported earlier. Additionally, we applied
the marker variable, i.e. firm financial goals, ap-
proach to provide a reference to the severity level
of the common method bias in our study (Sharma,
Crawford and Yetton, 2009). We conducted two
CFAs. The first model (the method factor model)
allowed all items of our substantive variables to
load on their respective factors and on a method
factor, and the other model only allowed items to
load on their respective factors. Comparing the fit
indices of these two models, we found that the chi-
square change was non-significant at the 0.05 level
(χ/d.f. = 0.996). NFI, CFI, RFI and RMSEA
had no significant improvements either. Thus, the
 642

Table 1. Means, standard deviations and correlations

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Mean 0.23 −0.97 4.07 9.41 3.14 2.17 11.53 3.82 4.50 4.02 4.36 4.30 4.16 3.84 3.60 3.70
SD 0.78 0.86 1.07 0.48 0.73 0.68 8.07 1.11 1.07 0.44 0.51 1.41 1.22 1.14 1.19 1.23
1. Environmental strengths
2. Environmental concerns −0.22**
3. OA 0.57*** −0.07
4. OC 0.01 0.23** 0.06
5. EO 0.55*** −0.15† 0.53*** 0.10
6. Firm size 0.31*** −0.08 0.15* −0.00 0.19*
7. Firm age 0.17* 0.08 0.07 −0.08 −0.12 0.54***
8. Slack 0.27*** 0.04 0.42*** 0.02 0.27*** 0.13† 0.15†
9. CEO Values 0.39*** −0.39*** 0.34*** 0.09 0.39*** 0.06 −0.17* 0.08
10. Self-deception −0.03 −0.09 −0.02 0.20** −0.07 −0.11 −0.07 0.03 0.05
11. Impression-management 0.16* −0.32*** 0.08 −0.08 −0.13† 0.08 0.11 0.02 0.09 0.40***
12. Government power 0.15† −0.21** 0.24** −0.20** 0.15† 0.10 0.08 0.15† −0.06 −0.00 0.15†
13. Customer power 0.14† −0.15† 0.21** −0.27*** 0.12 0.10 0.03 0.25*** 0.03 0.07 0.15† 0.59***
14. Competitor power 0.22** −0.12 0.21** 0.03 0.18* 0.11 0.07 0.29*** 0.08 0.15† 0.22** 0.52*** 0.63***
15. Media power 0.13 −0.10 0.31*** 0.09 0.19* 0.11 0.08 0.23** 0.01 −0.04 0.14† 0.65*** 0.57*** 0.65***
16. Supplier power 0.10 −0.05 0.20** 0.09 0.21** −0.02 −0.08 0.30*** 0.02 0.06 0.06 0.50*** 0.60*** 0.72*** 0.65***

Note: † p < 0.10; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001, two-tailed test.
Firm size was measured by the logarithm of the number of employees. Firm age was measured by the total number of years since the firm was established. Slack resources was adopted
from Tan and Peng (2003). CEO values was adopted from Agle, Mitchell and Sonnenfeld (1999). Self-deception propensity and impression management tendency were adopted from the
Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR) scale. The power of each of the five stakeholders was adopted from Agle, Mitchell and Sonnenfeld (1999).

© 2017 British Academy of Management.

Z. Tang and J. Tang

14678551, 2018, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12255 by Zhejiang University, Wiley Online Library on [28/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
 14678551, 2018, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12255 by Zhejiang University, Wiley Online Library on [28/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Stakeholder CSR Orientation Congruence 643

Table 2. Hypothesis test results

Environmental strengths Environmental concerns

DV M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8

Firm size 0.06 0.09 0.10 0.10 −0.11 −0.10 −0.16† −0.14
(0.10) (0.09) (0.09) (0.09) (0.11) (0.11) (0.11) (0.11)
Firm age 0.14† 0.09 0.08 0.07 −0.11 0.10 0.09 0.08
(0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01)
Slack 0.09 −0.01 −0.04 −0.03 0.11 0.03 0.09 0.09
(0.05) (0.05) (0.05) (0.05) (0.06) (0.06) (0.06) (0.06)
CEO values 0.19* 0.10 0.12 0.17* −0.38*** −0.36*** −0.29*** −0.28**
(0.06) (0.06) (0.06) (0.06) (0.07) (0.07) (0.07) (0.07)
Self-deception −0.10 −0.09 −0.07 −0.05 −0.04 −0.03 −0.06 −0.05
(0.14) (0.13) (0.13) (0.12) (0.16) (0.15) (0.16) (0.16)
Impression-management 0.16* 0.11 0.13† 0.08 −0.26** −0.24** −0.29*** −0.30***
(0.12) (0.12) (0.12) (0.12) (0.14) (0.14) (0.14) (0.14)
Government power 0.09 0.06 0.06 0.06 −0.16 −0.15 −0.11 −0.11
(0.05) (0.05) (0.05) (0.05) (0.06) (0.06) (0.06) (0.06)
Customer power −0.01 −0.02 −0.02 −0.02 0.02 0.02 −0.01 −0.01
(0.06) (0.06) (0.06) (0.06) (0.08) (0.07) (0.07) (0.07)
Competitor power 0.15 0.20* 0.18† 0.15 0.05 0.09 0.05 0.06
(0.07) (0.07) (0.07) (0.07) (0.09) (0.08) (0.08) (0.08)
Media power −0.13 −0.21* −0.19† −0.10 −0.01 −0.11 −0.09 0.06
(0.07) (0.07) (0.07) (0.07) (0.08) (0.08) (0.08) (0.09)
Supplier power −0.09 −0.07 −0.08 −0.13 −0.04 −0.03 −0.01 −0.02
(0.07) (0.06) (0.06) (0.06) (0.08) (0.08) (0.08) (0.08)
EO 0.46*** 0.32*** 0.35*** 0.40*** 0.01 0.01 −0.02 −0.01
(0.08) (0.09) (0.09) (0.09) (0.11) (0.12) (0.12) (0.12)
OC 0.04 0.04 0.06 0.13† 0.22*** 0.24** 0.18* 0.21*
(0.13) (0.13) (0.13) (0.13) (0.15) (0.15) (0.15) (0.17)
Environmental concerns −0.05 −0.11 −0.09 −0.13†
(0.07) (0.07) (0.07) (0.07)
Environmental strengths −0.05 −0.15 −0.13 −0.15
(0.10) (0.11) (0.11) (0.11)
OA 0.36*** 0.38*** 0.39*** 0.28** 0.26* 0.26*
(0.06) (0.06) (0.06) (0.08) (0.08) (0.08)
OA2 −0.16† −0.19† −0.19†
(0.04) (0.06) (0.06)
OA*OC −0.10 −0.13† 0.13 0.10
(0.12) (0.12) (0.15) (0.17)
OA*EO −0.05 0.02 0.01 −0.02
(0.06) (0.06) (0.09) (0.10)
EO*OC 0.02 0.10 0.09 0.11
(0.19) (0.19) (0.23) (0.25)
OA2 *OC −0.19* −0.15
(0.11) (0.14)
OA2 *EO 0.06 0.03
(0.05) (0.06)
OA*EO*OC −0.30*** −0.07
(0.13) (0.23)
OA2 *EO*OC 0.08
(0.17)
R2 0.46 0.53 0.54 0.58 0.37 0.41 0.46 0.46
Adj. R2 0.40 0.48 0.48 0.52 0.30 0.34 0.37 0.36
F 8.14*** 10.03*** 8.45*** 9.53*** 5.60*** 5.78*** 5.17*** 4.68***
R2 0.07 0.01 0.05 0.04 0.05 0.00
F 20.19*** 0.78 13.89*** 4.81** 2.31* 0.22

Note: † p < 0.10; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001, two-tailed test. Standard errors are in parentheses.

© 2017 British Academy of Management.

 14678551, 2018, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12255 by Zhejiang University, Wiley Online Library on [28/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
644 Z. Tang and J. Tang

1.5

Environmental Strengths
(1) High OC, High EO
0.5
(2) High OC, Low EO
0
Low OA High OA (3) Low OC, High EO
-0.5
(4) Low OC, Low EO
-1

-1.5

-2

Figure 1. Interaction of the average stakeholder CSR orientation (OA), congruence in stakeholder CSR orientation (OC) and EO on
environmental strengths

1.5

1
Environmental Concerns

Low OC
0.5
High OC

0
Low OA High OA
-0.5

-1

-1.5

Figure 2. Interaction of the average stakeholder CSR orientation (OA) and congruence in stakeholder CSR orientation (OC) on environ-
mental concerns

method factor model demonstrated that common
method bias was not severe in our study.
Additionally, we employed PROCESS to cross-
validate our results. Developed by Preacher and
Hayes (2008), PROCESS is another appropriate
technique to examine moderation effects. How-
ever, we did not employ PROCESS in the current
study to test our hypotheses because it does not
examine curvilinear relationships. As a post hoc
analysis, we employed PROCESS to re-examine
all the linear relationships in question because it
allows us to use raw, rather than mean-centered
scales, in model testing. The results highly resemble
the results presented earlier. Thus, our findings are
robust to the specific analysis technique adopted
in this study. Lastly, we wanted to ensure that
the analysis results were not biased by the choice
of these five stakeholders. We dropped one stake-
holder and reran the analysis with the remaining
four stakeholders. We repeated the same procedure
for all five stakeholders. The practical significance
and the coefficient directions were highly in align-
ment with the results reported above. Thus, the hy-
pothesized relationships should be robust across
the numbers of stakeholders selected.
Discussion
While stakeholder management theory has been
widely applied in explaining the motivation of
firms to engage in environmental performance,
previous studies have primarily investigated stake-
holders individually (e.g. Agle, Mitchell and

© 2017 British Academy of Management.


Stakeholder CSR Orientation Congruence
Sonnenfeld, 1999; Tang and Tang, 2012). Even
when multiple stakeholders were examined, lit-
tle effort has been made to explore how multi-
ple stakeholders jointly influence the firm. In the
current paper, we examine the effects of multiple
stakeholders on firms’ environmental behaviors si-
multaneously by taking into consideration both
the average and the congruence of multiple stake-
holder CSR orientations. By doing so, we con-
tend that, regardless how much pressure a single
stakeholder exerts on a firm, its effectiveness de-
pends on how other stakeholders coherently work
with or against it. To this end, we employed the
complexity perspective and had three major find-
ings in the context of Chinese SMEs. (1) The av-
erage level of external stakeholders’ CSR orienta-
tion (OA) can effectively improve environmental
strengths, but generates an inverted U-shaped rela-
tionship, marginally supported, with environmen-
tal concerns. (2) The congruence in stakeholders’
CSR orientation (OC) can enhance the inverted
U-shaped relationship between OA and environ-
mental concerns, but it has a non-significant ef-
fect on the OA–environmental strengths relation-
ship. (3) High EO can impact the moderating ef-
fect of OC on the OA–strengths relationship, yet
it does not influence the moderating effect of OC
on the OA–concerns relationship. Although not
hypothesized, we also found that EO had a posi-
tive and direct impact on environmental strengths,
and OC seemed to encourage environmental
concerns.
Theoretical implications
This study has three major theoretical implica-
tions. First, we treated environmental strengths
and concerns as two independent, orthogonal
constructs, which is exhibited by their differential
relationships with OA. Nascent CSR studies
suggest that high environmental strengths do not
necessarily imply low environmental concerns
and vice versa, and that a firm can engage in
both strengths and concerns at the same time
(Mattingly and Berman, 2006; Muller and
Kraussl, 2011). Nonetheless, limited research
has thoroughly and systematically examined
how stakeholders influence firms’ environmental
strengths and concerns in a differential manner.
Our study clearly exhibits that, in the context
of Chinese SMEs, OA has a positive impact
on environmental strengths, yet its impact on
© 2017 British Academy of Management.
14678551, 2018, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12255 by Zhejiang University, Wiley Online Library on [28/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
645
environmental concerns can be inverse U-shaped.
These results suggest that, when stakeholders’
CSR orientation is low, firms may sense that stake-
holders’ pressure for environmental performance
is for window-dressing purposes, only. Thus,
although firms may endeavor to improve their
strengths, in order to make up for the additional
costs associated with this effort, they will continue
behaviors that lead to more concerns. Only when
stakeholder pressure mounts to a certain level will
firms start to address seriously their environmental
concerns.
Second, to the best of our knowledge, the cur-
rent research is among the first to consider stake-
holders as a whole and examine the group ef-
fects on firms’ environmental performance. We
proposed the concept of CSR orientation congru-
ence to examine whether chances exist for firms
to make opportunistic decisions. A low congru-
ence would imply such a chance, as stakeholders
are not consistent with each other on their so-
cial pressure; whereas a high congruence indicates
that stakeholders uniformly agree on the impor-
tance of social performance, and firms thus have
little opportunity to turn this situation to their
advantage. The study of congruence bears signif-
icant meanings both theoretically and practically.
Chinese governments have just started to acknowl-
edge the importance of environmental protec-
tion. In the meantime, they are still heavily dis-
tracted by such economic goals as job creation and
GDP growth. The cut-throat competitive environ-
ment in China has long forced firms constantly
to make difficult choices between economic inter-
ests and environmental benefits (Tang, Tang and
Katz, 2014). Chinese customers are generally in fa-
vor of environmental initiatives, under the condi-
tion that these initiatives do not undermine their
purchasing power (Williamson, Lynch-Wood and
Ramsay, 2006). The media in China, perhaps the
most controversial stakeholder, has been found to
have a negative impact on Chinese SMEs’ envi-
ronmental performance (Tang and Tang, 2012).
Suppliers may strive to maintain minimum en-
vironmental performance as long as continuous
and stable purchases from buyers are guaranteed
(Reuter et al., 2010). Clearly, the CSR orienta-
tion of these stakeholders differs and, as a result,
OC may vary to a great extent. These observations
highlight the importance of our study in China and
provide the connection between individual stake-
holders and their multiplicity as a group. Indeed,

646
we found that OC enhances the inverted U-shaped
relationship between OA and environmental con-
cerns. However, we did not find a significant mod-
erating effect of OC on the relationship between
OA and environmental strengths.
These findings suggest that high average stake-
holder CSR orientation among multiple stake-
holders is sufficient to induce environmental
strengths from Chinese SMEs; thus, whether these
orientations are congruent with one another does
not make a significant difference in stakehold-
ers’ impact on firms’ environmental strengths.
Our results may thus help to explain the pre-
vious mixed findings regarding the effectiveness
of stakeholders’ power on a focal firm’s environ-
mental performance (Kassinis and Vafeas, 2006;
Weaver, Trevino and Cochran, 1999). While the
absolute level of the CSR orientation of multi-
ple stakeholders can induce firms’ environmen-
tal strengths, it requires both a high level and
high congruence of stakeholder CSR orientation
in order to successfully prevent environmental con-
cerns. Integrating both findings, it seems to sug-
gest that, in order to prompt Chinese SMEs to
invest more in environmental strengths, an ele-
vated level of the overall CSR orientations among
stakeholders will be sufficient, regardless whether
they agree with the importance of CSR. For ex-
ample, with China progressing fast, the overall
sentiment among the major stakeholders is that
Chinese firms should be more environmentally
conscious, even though these stakeholders may not
agree on how important environmental issues are
on their own agenda. Chinese customers may still
consider price as a bigger factor in their purchas-
ing decisions, whereas private, independent me-
dia may already make environmental issues an ur-
gent matter. Under such circumstances (i.e. high
OA with low OC), environmental strengths will
probably grow. The case for environmental con-
cerns, however, is very different. As our results in-
dicate, the average CSR orientation among stake-
holders needs to pass a certain inflection point in
order to reduce concerns, and the congruence of
these orientations will help this reduction to oc-
cur more effectively. In short, it is easier to force
Chinese SMEs to increase strengths than to reduce
concerns.
Third, we predicted that firms with high EO
are more likely to take advantage of incongruence
among stakeholders’ expectations to improve firm
environmental strengths. Indeed, we found that, in
14678551, 2018, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12255 by Zhejiang University, Wiley Online Library on [28/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Z. Tang and J. Tang
the Chinese SME context, the impact of OC on
the OA–strengths relationship is more pronounced
when EO is high vs. low. Contrary to conven-
tional wisdom that high-EO firms tend to capital-
ize proactively on incongruent stakeholder expec-
tations to gain competitive advantages, most likely
by reducing environmental strengths, our findings
did not reveal the proof for it. This result sug-
gests that, although abundant opportunities ex-
ist to take advantage of the incongruence among
stakeholders to increase environmentally damag-
ing behaviors, Chinese SMEs with high EO are not
tempted to do so. Conversely, when congruence is
high, the positive effect of OA on environmental
strengths tends to turn negative for high-EO firms.
A possible explanation is that, when the majority
of firms in the industry are striving to enhance their
environmental strengths owing to strong pressure
from stakeholders, firms with high EO are looking
for alternative mechanisms to differentiate them-
selves. Although not hypothesized, we also find
that EO has a direct, positive impact on environ-
mental strengths, and it has an insignificant ef-
fect on environmental concerns. This finding aligns
with the profile of high-EO firms in that, although
high-EO firms strive to lead the industry trend
by such measures as creating an environmentally
friendly image (Menguc, Auh and Ozanne, 2010),
they will only do so according to their own agenda
rather than submitting to stakeholders’ pressure
passively.
Practical implications
The major practical implication of the current re-
search is that policy-makers should be aware of
the complexity of managing or inducing Chinese
SMEs’ environmental performance. Stakeholders
face different tasks when attempting to improve
Chinese SMEs’ environmental strengths or to de-
crease their environmental concerns. Increasing
the importance of environmental goals on stake-
holders’ agenda may be sufficient to enhance firms’
environmental contributions, yet it may not be suf-
ficient to prevent environmental concerns. Firms
will not start to address their poor behaviors until
they sense real high pressure from external stake-
holders. A unified environmental agenda across
stakeholders can enhance the effect of stakeholder
CSR orientations on environmental concerns.
Thus, in order to improve firms’ environmental
strengths and reduce concerns, policy-makers and
© 2017 British Academy of Management.

Stakeholder CSR Orientation Congruence
the media should make greater efforts to promote
the salience of environmental issues. However, only
when customers, competitors and suppliers uni-
formly hold firms’ CSR engagement as impor-
tant can environmental concerns be effectively
reduced.
Furthermore, although an incongruent stake-
holder CSR orientation situation can provide en-
trepreneurial firms with opportunities to main-
tain or even increase their environmental concerns,
firms with high EO are not found to do so. On
the contrary, high-EO firms are more likely to
improve their environmental strengths in market
competition. Such efforts are not the results of fol-
lowing external stakeholders’ expectations; rather,
they appear to be self-determined efforts according
to firms’ own agenda. Thus, providing a friendly
environment will not only enhance entrepreneurial
development among Chinese SMEs, but encour-
age them to be more environmentally friendly. We
are hopeful that more and more entrepreneurial
firms will recognize this trend and realize that en-
vironmental strengths, not concerns, will provide
them with competitive advantages and long-term
benefits.
Limitations and suggestions for future research
Our study has several limitations. First, our data
were obtained from China only, which limits its
generalizability. However, the theories applied in
this study are generic in nature, so no dramatic
changes in the hypothesized relationships are sus-
pected if the study is conducted in other contexts.
Second, we examined five major external stake-
holders to illustrate our theoretical model. Inter-
nal stakeholders such as employees may interact
with a firm in a different manner, because inter-
nal stakeholders rely more on the firm than ex-
ternal ones. As such, future studies should include
other stakeholders to examine the generalizability
of our model. In addition, although we employed
three studies to cross-validate our key measures
and test hypotheses, our main study was largely
self-reported, which inherently affects the valid-
ity of our key measures such as environmental
strengths and concerns. This set of measures was
originally designed to gauge the environmental
performance of large, public, western firms. Thus,
better measures should be developed for Chinese
SMEs. As described above, we conducted several
tests to monitor the effect of single-source bias, but
© 2017 British Academy of Management.
14678551, 2018, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12255 by Zhejiang University, Wiley Online Library on [28/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
647
we acknowledge that these additional tests will not
completely eliminate the single-source bias. Lastly,
owing to the cross-sectional nature of the data, the
reverse causal relationship, e.g. firms with different
levels of environmental performance may perceive
OA and OC differently, cannot be completely ruled
out.
Notwithstanding the limitations, our study of-
fers several suggestions for future research. First,
when multiple stakeholders are taken into consid-
eration simultaneously, scholars will need to ex-
amine their joint effects on a firm’s environmental
performance. We applied the complexity perspec-
tive (Stacey, 1995; Walters and Bhuian, 2004) to
examine the mechanical complexity of the effects
of multiple stakeholders. This perspective tends to
treat all stakeholders as equally important and ig-
nore the fact that one stakeholder may be more
salient than another. Hence, future research could
build on the present study to explore the com-
plex nature of the different levels of salience that
multiple stakeholders hold to firms. By doing so,
we will be able to gradually unwrap the black
box between multiple stakeholders and the focal
firm.
Second, although stakeholder management the-
ory has been widely adopted to explain the moti-
vation for firms to engage in social performance,
it is worth noting that firms may be motivated
by different factors to engage in different types
of social performance. When applying our frame-
work to analyze other types of social perfor-
mance, we suspect that variations are necessary,
and it will be fruitful to identify alternative fac-
tors that enhance firms’ social performance. For
example, whereas regulatory stakeholders can ef-
fectively suppress firms’ environmental concerns
(Williamson, Lynch-Wood and Ramsay, 2006),
they have little legitimate power to prompt firms
to make philanthropic donations. In this regard,
CEO values have been proven to be a signifi-
cant driver for firms’ community contributions
(Murillo and Lozano, 2006).
Appendix 1: Key measure items
ENVIRONMENTAL STRENGTHS (−2 =
‘strongly disagree’ and 2 = ‘strongly agree’)
(1) Beneficial products and services. The company
derives substantial revenues from innovative
remediation products, environmental services

648
or products that promote the efficient use of
energy, or it has developed innovative products
with environmental benefits.
(2) Pollution prevention. The company has notably
strong pollution-prevention programs includ-
ing both emissions reductions and toxic-use re-
duction programs.
(3) Recycling. The company is either a substantial
user of recycled materials as raw materials in
its manufacturing processes or a major factor
in the recycling industry.
(4) Clean energy. The company has taken signif-
icant measures to reduce its impact on cli-
mate change and air pollution through use of
renewable energy and clean fuels or through
energy efficiency. The company has demon-
strated a commitment to promoting climate-
friendly policies and practices outside its own
operations.
(5) Communications. The company is a signa-
tory to the CERES Principles, publishes a
notably substantive environmental report, or
has notably effective internal communica-
tions systems in place for environmental best
practices.
(6) Property, plant and equipment. The company
maintains its property, plant and equip-
ment with above-average environmental
performance for its industry.
(7) Other strength. The company has demon-
strated a superior commitment to manage-
ment systems, voluntary programs or other
environmentally proactive activities.
ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS (−2 =
‘strongly disagree’ and 2 = ‘strongly agree’)
(1) Hazardous waste. The company’s liabilities
for hazardous waste sites exceed $50m, or
the company has recently paid substantial
fines or civil penalties for waste management
violations.
14678551, 2018, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12255 by Zhejiang University, Wiley Online Library on [28/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Z. Tang and J. Tang
(2) Regulatory problems. The company has re-
cently paid substantial fines or civil penalties
for violations of air, water or other environ-
mental regulations, or it has a pattern of regu-
latory controversies under the Clean Air Act,
Clean Water Act or other major environmen-
tal regulations.
(3) Ozone-depleting chemicals. The company is
among the top manufacturers of ozone-
depleting chemicals such as HCFCs, methyl
chloroform, methylene chloride or bromines.
(4) Substantial emissions. The company’s legal
emissions of toxic chemicals (as defined by and
reported to the EPA) from individual plants
into the air and water are among the highest
of the companies in the industry.
(5) Agricultural chemicals. The company is a sub-
stantial producer of agricultural chemicals, i.e.
pesticides or chemical fertilizers.
(6) Climate change. The company derives substan-
tial revenues from the sale of coal or oil and its
derivative fuel products, or the company de-
rives substantial revenues indirectly from the
combustion of coal or oil and its derivative fuel
products.
(7) Other concern. The company has been in-
volved in an environmental controversy that is
not covered by other KLD ratings.
STAKEHOLDER CSR ORIENTATION (For
each stakeholder, we asked the following questions.
1 = ‘strongly disagree’ and 7 = ‘strongly agree’)
(1) CSR is one of the priorities of this stakeholder
group.
(2) This stakeholder group acknowledges the im-
portance of CSR to society.
(3) CSR is one of the important principles this
stakeholder group employs to evaluate a firm’s
reputation.
(4) This stakeholder group pays special attention
to firms’ CSR activities.
© 2017 British Academy of Management.

Stakeholder CSR Orientation Congruence
ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION (Select the scale that is closer to the description)
In general, my firm favors a strong emphasis on the 12345
marketing of tried-and-true products/services.
In the past five years, my firm has not marketed new 12345
lines of products/services.
The changes in product/service have been mostly of 12345
a minor nature.
In general, my firm has a strong proclivity for 12345
low-risk products (with normal and certain
returns).
In general, my firm believes that, owing to the 12345
nature of the environment, it is best to explore it
gradually via cautious, incremental behavior.
When confronted with decision-making situations 12345
involving uncertainty, my firm typically adopts a
cautious, ‘wait-and-see’ posture in order to
minimize the probability of making costly
decisions.
In dealing with competitors, my firm typically 12345
responds to actions that competitors initiate.
In dealing with competitors, my firm is very seldom 12345
the first business to introduce new
products/services, techniques, technologies, etc.
In dealing with competitors, my firm typically seeks 12345
to avoid competitive clashes, preferring a
‘live-and-let-live’ posture.
References
Agle, B. R., R. K. Mitchell and J. A. Sonnenfeld (1999).
‘Who matters to CEOs? An investigation of stakeholder
attributes and salience, corporate performance, and CEO
values’, Academy of Management Journal, 42, pp. 507–
525.
Anderson, J. and D. Gerbing (1988). ‘Structural equation mod-
eling in practice: a review and recommended two-step ap-
proach’, Psychological Bulletin, 103, pp. 411–423.
Andrews, S. (2008/2009). ‘Seeing through the smog; understand-
ing the limits of Chinese air pollution reporting’, China Envi-
ronment Series, 2008/2009, 10, pp. 5–32.
Besiou, M., M. Hunter and L. van Wassenhove (2013). ‘A web
of watchdogs: stakeholder media networks and agenda-setting
in response to corporate initiatives’, Journal of Business Ethics,
118, pp. 709–729.
Bourgeois, L. J. III (1985). ‘Strategic goals, perceived uncer-
tainty, and economic performance in volatile environments’,
Academy of Management Journal, 28, pp. 548–573.
Bridoux, F. and J. W. Stoelhorst (2014). ‘Microfoundations for
stakeholder theory: managing stakeholders with heteroge-
neous motives’, Strategic Management Journal, 35, pp. 107–
125.
Campbell, J. L. (2007). ‘Why would corporations behave in so-
cially responsible ways? An institutional theory of corporate
social responsibility’, Academy of Management Review, 32,
pp. 946–967.
Chiu, T. K. and Y. H. Wang (2015). ‘Determinants of social dis-
closure quality in Taiwan: an application of stakeholder the-
ory’, Journal of Business Ethics, 129, pp. 379–398.
© 2017 British Academy of Management.
14678551, 2018, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12255 by Zhejiang University, Wiley Online Library on [28/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
649
In general, my firm favors a strong emphasis on R&D,
technological leadership, and innovations.
In the past five years, my firm has marketed many new lines of
products/services.
The changes in product/service have usually been quite dramatic.
In general, my firm has a strong proclivity for high-risk products
(with chances of very high return).
In general, my firm believes that, owing to the nature of the
environment, bold, wide-ranging acts are necessary to achieve
the firm’s objectives.
When confronted with decision-making situations involving
uncertainty, my firm typically adopts a bold, aggressive
posture in order to maximize the probability of exploring
potential opportunities.
In dealing with competitors, my firm typically initiates actions
to which competitors then respond.
In dealing with competitors, my firm is very often the first
business to introduce new products/services, techniques,
technologies, etc.
In dealing with competitors, my firm typically adopts a very
competitive, ‘undo-the-competitors’ posture.
Cordeiro, J. J. and M. Tewari (2015). ‘Firm characteristics, indus-
try context, and investor reactions to environmental CSR: a
stakeholder theory approach’, Journal of Business Ethics, 130,
pp. 833–849.
Corley, K. and D. Gioia (2004). ‘Identity ambiguity and change
in the wake of a corporate spin-off’, Administrative Science
Quarterly, 49, pp. 173–208.
Covin, J. G. and D. P. Slevin (1988). ‘The influence of or-
ganization structure on the utility of an entrepreneurial
top management style’, Journal of Management Studies, 25,
pp. 217–259.
Covin, J. G. and D. P. Slevin (1989). ‘Strategic management
of small firms in hostile and benign environments’, Strategic
Management Journal, 10, pp. 75–87.
Covin, J. G. and D. P. Slevin (1991). ‘A conceptual model of en-
trepreneurship as firm behavior’, Entrepreneurship Theory and
Practice, 16, pp. 7–25.
Fernhaber, S. and P. Patel (2012). ‘How do young firms manage
product portfolio complexity? The role of absorptive capac-
ity and ambidexterity’, Strategic Management Journal, 33, pp.
1516–1539.
Freeman, R. E. (1984). Strategic Management: A Stakeholder
Approach. Boston, MA: Pitman.
Frooman, J. (1999). ‘Stakeholder influence strategies’, Academy
of Management Review, 24, pp. 191–205.
Esty, D. and A. Winston (2006). Green to Gold: How Smart Com-
panies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value,
and Build Competitive Advantage. New Haven, CT: Yale Uni-
versity Press.
Gao, X., Z. Liu, M. Liu, L. Zhao, L. Zhang and W. Zhang (2013).
‘Investigating the 14 polluting firms in Shandong province

650
that are mostly hidden close to rural areas’, Qilu Night News,
15 June.
Garcia-Castro, R. and C. Francoeur (2016). ‘When more is
not better: complementarities, costs and contingencies in
stakeholder management’, Strategic Management Journal, 37,
pp. 406–424.
Gleick, J. (1987). Chaos: Making a New Science. New York, NY:
Penguin Books.
Henriques, I. and P. Sadorsky (1999). ‘The relationship between
environmental commitment and managerial perceptions of
stakeholder importance’, Academy of Management Journal,
42, pp. 7–99.
Houston, G. (2017). ‘What is the average profit margin for a
small business?’ Available at http://smallbusiness.chron.com/
average-profit-margin-small-business-2(3368) [accessed 5 May
2017].
Jay, J. (2013). ‘Navigating paradox as a mechanism of change and
innovation in hybrid organizations’, Academy of Management
Journal, 56, pp. 137–159.
Jenkins, H. (2006). ‘Small business champions for corporate so-
cial responsibility’, Journal of Business Ethics, 67, pp. 241–
256.
Kang, J. (2013). ‘The relationship between corporate diversifica-
tion and corporate social performance’, Strategic Management
Journal, 34, pp. 94–109.
Kassinis, G. and N. Vafeas (2006). ‘Stakeholder pressures and en-
vironmental performance’, Academy of Management Journal,
49, pp. 145–159.
Li, H. and K. Atuahene-Gima (2001). ‘Product innovation
strategy and the performance of new technology ventures
in China’, Academy of Management Journal, 44, pp. 1123–
1134.
Lichtenstein, B., N. Carter, K. Dooley and W. Gartner (2007).
‘Complexity dynamics of nascent entrepreneurship’, Journal of
Business Venturing, 22, pp. 236–261.
Luo, Y. (2006). ‘Political behavior, social responsibility, and per-
ceived corruption: a structuration perspective’, Journal of In-
ternational Business Studies, 37, pp. 747–766.
Maignan, I. and D. A. Ralston (2002). ‘Corporate social respon-
sibility in Europe and the U.S.: insights from businesses’ self-
presentations’, Journal of International Business Studies, 33,
pp. 497–514.
Mattingly, J. and S. Berman (2006). ‘Measurement of corporate
social action: discovering taxonomy in the Kinder Lydenburg
Domini ratings data’, Business and Society, 45, pp. 20–46.
McCarthy, D. J. and S. M. Puffer (2008). ‘Corporate governance
as a foundation for corporate social responsibility in transi-
tioning economies: the Russian experience’, Thunderbird Inter-
national Business Review, 50, pp. 231–243.
McWilliams, A. and D. Siegel (2000). ‘Corporate social respon-
sibility and financial performance: correlation or misspecifica-
tion’, Strategic Management Journal, 21, pp. 603–609.
Menguc, B., S. Auh and L. Ozanne (2010). ‘The interactive effect
of internal and external factors on a proactive environmental
strategy and its influence on a firm’s performance’, Journal of
Business Ethics, 94, pp. 279–298.
Miller, D. (1983). ‘The correlates of entrepreneurship in three
types of firms’, Management Science, 29, pp. 770–791.
Mitchell, R. K., B. R. Agle and D. J. Wood (1997). ‘Toward a
theory of stakeholder identification and salience: defining the
principle of who and what really counts’, Academy of Manage-
ment Review, 22, pp. 853–886.
14678551, 2018, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12255 by Zhejiang University, Wiley Online Library on [28/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Z. Tang and J. Tang
Muller, A. and R. Kraussl (2011). ‘Doing good deeds in
times of need: a strategic perspective on corporate disas-
ter donations’, Strategic Management Journal, 32, pp. 911–
929.
Murillo, D. and J. M. Lozano (2006). ‘SMEs and CSR: an ap-
proach to CSR in their own words’, Journal of Business Ethics,
67, pp. 227–240.
Perrini, F. (2006). ‘SMEs and CSR theory: evidence and implica-
tions from an Italian perspective’, Journal of Business Ethics,
67, pp. 305–316.
Philippe, T. and J. Koehler (2005). ‘A factor analytical study of
perceived organizational hypocrisy’, SAM Advanced Manage-
ment Journal, 70(2), pp. 13–20.
Reuter, C., K., Foerstl, E. Hartmann and C. Blome (2010). ‘Sus-
tainable global supplier management: the role of dynamic ca-
pabilities in achieving competitive advantage’, Journal of Sup-
ply Chain Management, 46(2), pp. 45–63.
Podsakoff, P. M., S. B. MacKenzie and N. P. Podsakoff (2012).
‘Sources of method bias in social science research and recom-
mendations on how to control it’, Annual Review of Psychol-
ogy, 65, pp. 539–569.
Pollack, J., E. Vanepps and A. Hayes (2012). ‘The moderating
role of social ties on entrepreneurs’ depressed affect and with-
drawal intentions in response to economic stress’, Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 33, pp. 789–810.
Preacher, K. J. and A. F. Hayes (2008). ‘Asymptotic and resam-
pling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects
in multiple mediator models’, Behavior Research Methods, 40,
pp. 879–891.
Qin, F. (2011). ‘The net profit margin has dropped by less than
3% in China and the supportive polices are urgently needed’,
Shanghai Securities News. 10 September.
Russo, M. and P. Fouts (1997). ‘A resource-based perspec-
tive on corporate environmental performance and prof-
itability’, Academy of Management Journal, 40, pp. 534–
559.
Saeed, S., S. Y. Yousafzai and A. Engelen (2014). ‘On cul-
tural and microeconomic contingencies of the entrepreneurial
orientation–performance relationship’, Entrepreneurship The-
ory and Practice, 38, pp. 255–290.
Schneider, A., C. Wickert and E. Marti (2017). ‘Reducing com-
plexity by creating complexity: a systems theory perspective on
how organizations respond to their environments’, Journal of
Management Studies, 54, pp. 182–208.
Sharma, R., J. Crawford and P. Yetton (2009). ‘Estimating the
effect of common method variance: the method–method pair
technique with an illustration from TAM research’, MIS Quar-
terly, 33, pp. A1–A13.
Shrout, P. E. and J. L. Fleiss (1979). ‘Intraclass correlations:
uses in assessing rater reliability’, Psychological Bulletin, 86,
pp. 377–386.
Soundararajan, V. and J. Brown (2016). ‘Voluntary governance
mechanisms in global supply chains: beyond CSR to a stake-
holder utility perspective’, Journal of Business Ethics, 134,
pp. 83–102.
Stacey, R. (1995). ‘The science of complexity: an alternative per-
spective for strategic change processes’, Strategic Management
Journal, 16, pp. 477–495.
Strike, V., L. Gao and P. Bansal (2006). ‘Being good while be-
ing bad: social responsibility and the international diversifica-
tion of US firms’, Journal of International Business Studies, 37,
pp. 850–862.
© 2017 British Academy of Management.
 14678551, 2018, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.12255 by Zhejiang University, Wiley Online Library on [28/11/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
Stakeholder CSR Orientation Congruence 651

Tang, Z. and J. Tang (2012). ‘Stakeholder–firm power difference,
stakeholders’ CSR orientation, and SMEs’ environmental
performance in China’, Journal of Business Venturing, 27,
pp. 436–455.
Tang, Z., P. Dickson, L. Marino, J. Tang and B. Powell
(2010). ‘The value of organizational ambivalence for small and
medium size enterprises in an uncertain world’, British Journal
of Management, 21, pp. 809–828.
Tang, J., Z. Tang and J. A. Katz (2014). ‘Proactiveness,
stakeholder-firm power difference, product safety and quality
of Chinese SMEs’, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 38,
pp. 1129–1157.
Waldrop, M. (1992). Complexity: The Emerging Science at the
Edge of Order and Chaos. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
Walgrave, S. and P. V. Aelst (2006). ‘The contingency of the
mass media’s political agenda setting power: toward a pre-
liminary theory’, Journal of Communication, 56, pp. 88–
109.
Walters, B. and S. Bhuian (2004). ‘Complexity absorption and
performance: a structural analysis of acute-care hospitals’,
Journal of Management, 30, pp. 97–121.
Wang, S. (2016). ‘The environmental bureau under the provin-
cial level will be subject to vertical management’, New Beijing
News. 23 September.
Weaver, G. R., L. K. Trevino and P. L. Cochran (1999). ‘Inte-
grated and decoupled corporate social performance: manage-
ment commitments, external pressures, and corporate ethical
practices’, Academy of Management Journal, 42, pp. 539–552.
Weiss, N. (2004). Introductory Statistics, 7th edn. New York, NY:
Pearson Addison Wesley.
Williamson, D., G. Lynch-Wood and J. Ramsay (2006). ‘Drivers
of environmental behavior in manufacturing SMEs and the
implications for CSR’, Journal of Business Ethics, 67, pp. 317–
330.
Wolf, J. (2014). ‘The relationship between sustainable sup-
ply chain management, stakeholder pressure and corporate
sustainability performance’, Journal of Business Ethics, 119,
pp. 317–328.
Yan, L., J. Liu and X. Guo (2011). , 
. The Ecological Innovation of Recycling Econ-
omy. Beijing: China Fiscal and Political Economy Publishing
Company.

Zhi Tang, PhD, is an associate professor of management at Saunders College of Business of Rochester
Institute of Technology. His publications appear in journals such as Journal of Management, Journal
of Management Studies, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
Theory and Practice, among others.

Jintong Tang, PhD, is an associate professor of entrepreneurship and management at Saint Louis
University’s John Cook School of Business. She is also a visiting chair professor at Nankai University’s
Business School. She has published in both entrepreneurship and management journals such as Journal
of Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and
Practice, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, among others.

© 2017 British Academy of Management.