Uniting stakeholders to promote green manufacturing: the push–pull–mooring model

Purpose Enterprise green manufacturing (EGM) is a crucial pathway for achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality as well as an integral component of building a strong manufacturing sector. Previous studies have primarily focused on isolated factors affecting EGM, potentially underestimating the underlying interactions among these factors. This study aims to develop a multidimensional analytical framework for the mechanisms influencing EGM and to identify strategies for mobilizing stakeholder engagement to promote EGM. Design/methodology/approach Given that the PPM (push–pull–mooring) model provides a comprehensive framework for analyzing behavioral transitions, this study adopts the PPM model to empirically investigate the incentive mechanisms driving EGM. Using data from heavily polluting listed enterprises between 2011 and 2020, this study examines the factors that stimulate EGM as a representative enterprise green practice. Findings Under the simultaneous presence of push, pull and mooring force variables, among the push variables, only market competition pressure has not yet shown a significant driving role in EGM; enterprise social reputation acts as a reverse pull force, failing to attract enterprises to improve their green manufacturing levels; however, enterprise resource endowment as a mooring force variable significantly promotes EGM. In addition, the incentive mechanism for EGM exhibits heterogeneity in enterprise lifecycle and nature. Notably, enterprise resource endowment negatively moderates internal drivers primarily led by executives and weakens the negative impact of enterprise social reputation. Practical implications This study provides insights for policymakers and enterprises by demonstrating that stimulating the government’s drive to optimize regulatory functions, mobilizing public participation in environmental supervision and enhancing the endogenous impetus for EGM can collectively form a synergistic incentive mechanism for optimizing EGM. Originality/value This study innovatively applies the PPM model to the research on incentive mechanisms for EGM, comprehensively analyzing the complex mechanisms under the joint influence of multiple factors as well as the heterogeneous manifestations across different enterprise lifecycle stages and ownership types. It offers new perspectives and theoretical contributions to this research field, thereby enriching the research framework on EGM.