Proactive boundary‐spanning search, organizational resilience, and radical green innovation

Abstract Radical green innovation has emerged as an effective strategy for firms to achieve sustainable development in the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) environment. Although the importance of external knowledge acquisition has been recognized, the mechanism of how proactive boundary‐spanning search affects radical green innovation is still blurred. Drawing on the resource‐based view and dynamic capabilities theory, this research discusses the impact of two types of proactive boundary‐spanning search on radical green innovation and considers the mediating role of organizational resilience and the moderating role of big data analytics capability. Based on data collected from 294 manufacturing firms in China, the results show that both value‐chain‐based proactive search and industry–university‐based proactive search positively influence radical green innovation. Furthermore, organizational resilience fully mediates the relationship between value‐chain‐based proactive search and radical green innovation, and partially mediates the relationship between industry–university‐based proactive search and radical green innovation. Moreover, we demonstrate that big data analytics capability moderates the relationship between industry–university‐based proactive search and radical green innovation. This research clarifies not only the mechanism of proactive boundary‐spanning search driving radical green innovation by highlighting the mediating role of organizational resilience and the moderating role of big data analytics capability, but also provides theoretical and managerial implications for manufacturing firms and other stakeholders to carry out radical green innovation.