Dynamic sustainability capabilities and corporate sustainability performance: The mediating effect of resource management capabilities

Corporate sustainable development has become an important topic for academic discussion. Sustainability is a managerial trend playing an important role in contemporary organizational strategy management. There has been little study about the ability of companies to make sustainability more dynamic and to integrate sustainability within overarching strategies, transforming sustainability into a business asset. This study examines ways to translate dynamic sustainability capabilities into corporate sustainability performance from a natural resource-based view. The study investigates the mediating effect of resource management capabilities to connect dynamic sustainability capabilities and corporate sustainability performance. Survey data were collected from 163 corporations in China. Data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The results demonstrate that (a) dynamic sustainability capabilities are composed of monitoring, seizing, and reconstructing capabilities; (b) dynamic capabilities with respect to sustainability have a significant positive effect on each dimension of corporate sustainability performance; (c) resource management capabilities were found to only partially mediate the relationship between dynamic sustainability capabilities and corporate environmental and social performance; (d) economic performance exhibits no mediation. This study enriches the theory of dynamic corporate capabilities and sustainable development and provides effective management advice for companies facing sustainable development issues.