Promoting green product development performance via leader green transformationality and employee green self-efficacy: The moderating role of environmental regulation

By integrating internal green self-efficacy and external environmental regulation, this research investigates the relationship between green transformational leadership and green product development performance. Taking 23 new energy vehicle enterprises in China as samples, we collected 298 valid questionnaires and verified the hypotheses through structural equation modeling. The results show that both green transformational leadership and green self-efficacy can promote green product development performance; green self-efficacy mediates the positive relationship between green transformational leadership and green product development performance, while environmental regulation positively moderates the mediating effect of green self-efficacy. Furthermore, environmental regulation and green self-efficacy interact to promote green product development performance. Our research provides a new perspective to understand how green transformational leadership is related to green product development performance and how this relationship is molded by contextual antecedents. Enterprises need to comprehensively consider the green influence of transformational leadership, green driving of employees themselves, and green linkage among organizations (macro policy guidance, passive market incentives, and self-issued actions) to improve green product development performance. Limitations and future scope are discussed.