| The emerging trend of "greening" has led retailers to recognize the importance of integrating environmental management practices into their retail value chain operations. However, prior literature lacks research on the topic of Green Retailing (GR), which is largely unexplored in terms of its construct measurement, adoption, antecedents, and performance outcomes. In this study we aim to (i) establish a theoretical framework to identify the different dimensions and roles of retailers in the adoption of GR, (ii) conceptualize and empirically validate the measures of GR, (iii) identify the motives of firms to adopt GR, and (iv) examine the performance implications of GR adoption.;To achieve these objectives, we carried out a study organized in three inter-related stages to obtain answers to address the research issues pertinent to GR. We first conducted an exploratory qualitative study focusing on the GR-oriented approaches and practices undertaken by world-class retailers to explore the phenomenon of GR in the retail industry. We then carried out a quantitative survey study with data collected from 141 retailers in Hong Kong to empirically validate the theoretical measures developed in this study for evaluating GR adoption and to test the hypothesized GR antecedent-adoption-performance relationships. Finally, we performed a qualitative analysis using secondary data from 375 publicly traded retailers in Japan to seek further empirical evidence in support of our findings.;Our results reveal that GR consists of three dimensions: internal-improvement based GR, external-coordination based GR, and supportive-development based GR with a total of ten practices subsumed under these dimensions. The ten practices are green store operations, green transportation, green procurement, green product design, green packaging, green promotion, green after-sales service, green policy, green research development, and green human resource development. We also find that environmental regulatory pressure, customer pressure, supplier pressure, and competitive pressure as perceived by retailers are positively associated with the extent to which GR is adopted by retailers. In addition, we obtain empirical evidence that GR adoption is positively associated with the financial and environmental performance outcomes of the retailers. |
