Environmental Performance Of Servitized Manufacturing Firms:The Moderating Effect Of Inter-organizational Information Technology Capabilities

Under the global crisis of climate warming and deteriorating ecological environment,environmental issues have attracted widespread attention around the world.The environmental sustainable development issues of firms,especially manufacturing firms,have been widely concerned by various stakeholders.Manufacturers are faced with various institutional pressures,regulatory pressures,and consumer pressures,such as the government’s new green regulations,the government’s requirement to publicly disclose corporate environmental performance,the spontaneous supervision of non-governmental environmental protection organizations,and the public’s accusations and criticisms of environmental leakage incidents,the cooperation requirements of green suppliers,consumers’ preference for green products and services,etc.Meanwhile,excellent environmental performance enables manufacturers to reduce production costs,build a positive reputation,obtain government support,and ultimately improve financial performance and market value.Therefore,driven by the pressure of various stakeholders and the competitive advantages brought about by excellent environmental performance,firms,especially high-polluting manufacturers,pay more and more attention to environmental performance.The servitization strategy is regarded as an environment-friendly strategy,which has attracted the close attention of manufacturers and scholars.This study investigates the different effects of the(mis)alignment between servitization strategies(i.e.product-oriented and customer-oriented services)and interorganizational information technology(IT)capabilities(IT reconfiguration and IT integration)concerning the environmental performance of servitizedmanufacturing firms.Using hierarchical regression analysis,this study examines the theoretical model based on multi-respondent survey data from 1,149 senior managers of 383 manufacturers in China.Our study finds that product-oriented services have a nonsignificant effect on environmental performance,whereas customer-oriented services exert a significantly positive effect.The alignment between product-oriented services and IT reconfiguration,and that between customer-oriented services and IT integration,improve environmental performance.In contrast,the misalignment between productoriented services and IT integration,and that between customer-oriented services and IT reconfiguration,hurt environmental performance.This study elucidates the differential effects of the(mis)alignment between servitization strategies and inter-organizational IT capabilities on environmental performance.This study resolves the inconsistency regarding the implications of servitization on environmental performance.It also expands the boundary conditions for the impact of servitization on environmental performance,and explores interorganizational IT capabilities(IT reconfiguration capabilities and IT integration capabilities)on the relationship between servitization and environmental performance.In addition,this study broadens the perspective of business-IT alignment by exploring the key role of business-IT alignment theory in environmental performance management.