Green Intellectual Capital and Environmental Performance: The Mediating Role of Green Hrm and Employees’ Pro- Environmental Behavior

Abstract Drawing on the theories of natural-resource-based view and social cognition, this research examines the influence of green intellectual capital (GIC) on environmental performance (EP) and analyses the mediation roles of pro-environmental behavior (PEB) and green human resource management (GHRM). A questionnaire-based survey was created to obtain data from 448 respondents from Vietnamese SMEs using snowball sampling and convenience sampling techniques. Partially least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to investigate the proposed model. The findings illustrate that GIC has an immediate impact on GHRM, PEB, and EP. Contrary to expectations, only GHRM acts as a mediator while PEB has no function in the association between GIC and EP. This is the first study to integrate GHRM and PEB as mediators to shed insight into the various impact mechanisms in the GIC-EP interaction. Unexpectedly, PEB did not mediate the GIC–EP relationship, suggesting structured HR systems may be more influential than voluntary behavior in SMEs.