Technology Characteristics, Stakeholder Pressure, Social Influence, and Green Innovation: Empirical Evidence from Chinese Express Companies

Over the past decade, the rapid development of e-commerce and express industries in China has resulted in huge environmental costs. Compared with manufacturing industries, the values of green innovation are less recognized in logistics industries. To promote the green practices in logistic enterprises, it is imperative to have a thorough understanding of the determinants of green innovation adoption. To this end, this paper performs an empirical investigation into the intentions to adopt green innovation from 196 Chinese express companies. The determinant variables were constructed from the perspective of technology characteristics (perceived green usefulness and perceived integration ease of use), stakeholder pressure (government, customer, and platform pressures), and social influence. Then, a 20-item scale was designed based on the literature review and expert opinions. The results revealed the significant positive effects of technology characteristics and social influence on the intentions to adopt green innovation. Meanwhile, only the platform pressure was significant with the adopting intentions among the variables from stakeholder pressure. Moreover, variables from technology characteristics were found to have meditation effects between social influence and adopting intentions. Based on the findings, theoretical and practical implications are proposed to promote the green and sustainable development of express companies in China.