ABSTRACT Sustainable supply chain change has emerged as a strategic requirement within manufacturing companies that are trying to gain long‐term competitiveness to meet the rising environmental and institutional demands. This research paper examines how corporate social responsibility (CSR), green transformational leadership (GTL), and green finance (GF) collectively lead to Sustainable Supply Chain Performance (SSCP) through the moderation of institutional pressure (IP). Crucially, the study identifies sustainable supply chain management practices (SSCMP) as the operational mechanism that mediates these relationships, functioning as the critical capability through which strategic intent and financial resources are converted into tangible execution. Even though previous studies analyzed these constructs separately, little emphasis has been placed on their combined impacts in a single theoretical framework, especially in the new manufacturing economies. Based on the Institutional Theory, Stakeholder Theory, and Transformational Leadership Theory (TLT), this paper establishes a cohesive conceptual framework of the interaction of leadership, financial commitment, and external pressures in motivating SSCP. The results, based on the data of 377 manufacturing professionals in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Shanghai, demonstrate that CSR, GTL, and GF are effective in improving SSCP by fostering the implementation of SSCMP. Moreover, IP has a direct positive influence on SSCP and enhances the correlation between SSCMP and performance outcomes. The model has high predictive and explanatory power. This research paper is relevant to the sustainability literature as it incorporates organizational, financial, and institutional approaches into a coherent conceptualization and offers contextualized managerial and policy suggestions to promote sustainable competitiveness in the manufacturing sector in China.
Cheng et al. (Thu,) studied this question.