Drawing from the stimulus-organism-response model, this study examines how and under what circumstances perceived environmental corporate social responsibility affects innovative behavior of employees in the context of environmental protection. Using a sample of 398 employees from different firms in the high energy-consuming industry of China, the results indicate that, at first, perceived ECSR provides a positive effect on organizational identification. Secondly, organizational identification has a positive influence on the innovative behavior of employees. Thirdly, organizational identification plays an important mediating effect (...) between perceived ECSR and the innovative behavior of employees. Fourthly, both the effect of perceived ECSR on organizational identification and the indirect effect of perceived ECSR on the innovative behavior of the employees via organizational identification will be stronger when the levels of organizational trust are high. These findings add new insights into the perceived ECSR-employees’ innovative behavior relationship and provide important managerial implications for enhancing ECSR perception to improve the innovative behavior of employees. (shrink)

With rapid changes in technology, knowledge innovation has become more and more complex. Complex partners facilitate knowledge creation and innovation in complex problem-solving. Relying on R&D cooperation with forerunners, latecomers can acquire new knowledge factors and new ideas and use them to create new knowledge. This study demonstrated the knowledge innovation mechanism based on linkages between periphery knowledge and core knowledge with knowledge map theory and set methodology. A case of R&D cooperation between latecomers and forerunners was introduced to verify (...) this mechanism. The results show that latecomers could share forerunners’ periphery knowledge in R&D cooperation through formal and informal interaction and acquire the core knowledge factors in periphery knowledge based on the linkages between them. With these core knowledge factors, latecomers integrate them into their internal knowledge system and create new knowledge. By analyzing the linkages between periphery and core knowledge factors, this study creatively demonstrates the knowledge innovation mechanism in knowledge linkage perspective. It deepens the understanding of R&D cooperation between latecomers and forerunners and expands the focus of knowledge innovation theory. This study provides a new insight into latecomers effectively activating internal and external knowledge resources through R&D cooperation. (shrink)