Ethical leadership and environmental performance: The role of green IT capital, green technology innovation, and technological orientation

Drawing upon the resource-based perspective, we develop and test a serial mediation model of CEO ethical leadership and environmental performance. Specifically, we propose that ethical leadership enhance environmental performance and this link is explained by green IT capital and green technology innovation, with a particular focus on the moderating role of firm technological orientation. The hypothesized relationships were tested in structural equation modeling with survey data from 303 Saudi small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The results illustrate that the indirect effect of CEO ethical leadership on environmental performance is serially mediated by green IT capital and green technology innovation. The results also show that firm technological orientation moderates the relationship between CEO ethical leadership and green IT capital. This study offers practical insights and suggests that SMEs leadership focus on the creation and implementation of green infrastructure for successful implementation of green practices that can contribute to improved environmental performance.