Business sustainability and competitive advantage: identifying the role of green intellectual capital, environmental management accounting and energy efficiency
Subject Areas : Environmental managment
Behnam Karamshahi
1
*
,
Amir Fazel
2
,
Azin Harandi
3
1 - Assistant Professor, Accounting Group, Baft higher education complex, Shahid Bahonar university of Kerman, Iran. *(Corresponding Author)
2 - Assistant Professor, Management Group, Baft higher education complex, Shahid Bahonar university of Kerman, Iran.
3 - Phd of Business Management, Faculty of Management & Economics, Payam noor university, Tehran, Iran.
Keywords: business sustainability, competitive advantage, green intellectual capital, environmental management accounting, energy efficiency JEL Classification: L22, M4, O34, Q4,
Abstract :
Background and Objective: Competitive advantage is a set of unique abilities of an economic unit that allows it to penetrate the desired markets and provide superiority over its competitors. At the same time, business sustainability is an effort to provide the best outcome for humans and the environment now and in the future. Knowing the factors affecting business stability and competitive advantage can help to obtain the necessary information to protect the interests of all the stakeholders of the organizations and lead to capturing the advantageous aspects of the changing currents. The purpose of this research is to investigate and identify the role of green intellectual capital, environmental accounting and energy efficiency on business sustainability and gaining competitive advantage.
Material and Methodology: To analyze the data and test the hypotheses, statistical techniques and structural equations and Lisrel, SPSS 26 and Smart Pls3 software were used. The statistical population of the research includes the companies that were classified in 14 groups according to the severity and weakness of pollution and other environmental issues in accordance with Article 2 of the regulations and criteria for the establishment of units and industrial and production activities approved on 3/8/2013. The data required for the research was collected by means of a questionnaire from 174 people from the financial department who were aware of the general activities of the company.
Findings: The research results show that green intellectual capital, environmental accounting and energy efficiency have a positive and significant effect on improving business sustainability and strengthening competitive advantage.
Discussion and Conclusion: Based on the findings of this research, manufacturing companies should focus part of their attention and resources on developing green intellectual capital and improving energy consumption levels, and also through the use of efficient and appropriate environmental management accounting techniques, disclose risks and the environmental effects of activities and how to manage them.
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