Translating environmental leadership into sustainable success in Vietnamese women-owned SMEs: A mixed-method approach

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Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
As the global economy increasingly emphasizes sustainable development, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging economies face growing pressure to integrate environmental responsibility with long-term business performance. This study aims to examine how environmental leadership and corporate social responsibility contribute to sustainable success in women-owned SMEs through the roles of green innovation and green competitive advantage. The paper analyzes survey data collected from 536 female business leaders in Vietnam using partial least squares structural equation modeling and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. The results reveal that environmental leadership and corporate social responsibility do not exert a direct influence on sustainable success (p > 0.05). Instead, their effects operate through a full serial mediation mechanism in which corporate social responsibility stimulates green innovation, which subsequently strengthens green competitive advantage and ultimately enhances sustainable success. The structural model explains 52.1% of the variance in sustainable success. In addition, market orientation significantly strengthens the relationship between green competitive advantage and sustainable success (β = 0.176, p < 0.001). Configurational analysis further identifies two alternative strategic pathways leading to high sustainable success, both highlighting the central role of green innovation and green competitive advantage. These findings demonstrate that ethical leadership values must be transformed into concrete green capabilities to generate sustainable competitive performance in resource-constrained environments.

Acknowledgment
This research is funded by Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) under grant number 504.05-2023.05.

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    • Figure 1. Conceptual framework
    • Table 1. Profile of respondents and organizations (n = 536)
    • Table 2. Reliability and convergent validity results
    • Table 3. Explanatory power (R2) and predictive relevance (Q2)
    • Table 4. Direct hypothesis testing results and effect sizes
    • Table 5. Indirect and interaction effects
    • Table 6. Configurations for achieving high sustainable success
    • Table А1. Measurement scales
    • Table В1. Analysis of necessary conditions for sustainable success (SS)
    • Conceptualization
      Tra Dao Thu, Nuong Le Thi
    • Data curation
      Tra Dao Thu, Nuong Le Thi
    • Formal Analysis
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    • Funding acquisition
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    • Investigation
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    • Methodology
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    • Project administration
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    • Resources
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    • Software
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    • Supervision
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    • Validation
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    • Visualization
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    • Writing – review & editing
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    • Writing – original draft
      Nuong Le Thi