Green procurement and green innovation for green organizational legitimacy and access to green finance: The mediating role of total quality management

Green manufacturing practices and total quality management (TQM) are relevant mechanisms that hold promise for firms to plan and monitor their activities for sustainable outcomes. However, despite their potential for sustainability and continuous improvement, their application and study in the literature have remained largely separated and underexplored. To address this gap, we draw on the institutional and stakeholder theories to examine how green procurement, green product innovation and green process innovation enhance green organizational legitimacy and access to green finance by using TQM as a mediator in these relationships. We used the partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique to analyze survey data from 244 manufacturing firms in Ghana. The results showed that green procurement influenced TQM and green organizational legitimacy but not access to green finance. Likewise, green product innovation and green process innovation enhanced TQM, green organizational legitimacy, and access to green finance. TQM had differential degrees of mediation on the effects of green procurement, green product innovation, and green process innovation on green organizational legitimacy and access to green finance. We contribute to prior studies by integrating green manufacturing practices and TQM in ways that help managers of manufacturing firms who wish to unravel the complexities of integrating green manufacturing practices and TQM.