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The finest diamond must be green: a closer look at the roles of institution in shipping firms’ sustainable practices

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Abstract

Shipping companies’ implementation of sustainable shipping management is an important means of protecting major water bodies in the marine environment. This research establishes a theoretical model based on institutional theory and incorporates a micro-consciousness level to explore the factors influencing companies’ implementation of sustainable shipping practices. After surveying the management of Chinese shipping companies, a total of 282 datasets were obtained for analysis. This study demonstrated that rules and regulations, societal norms, environmental awareness, and legal awareness can improve shipping companies’ sustainable shipping practices. Meanwhile, these practices have a positive impact on the environmental, financial, and competitive performance of shipping companies. Moreover, these findings are highly significant for maritime environmental protection and sustainability.

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Data availability

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the editors and anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedbacks and insightful comments.

Funding

This work was supported by the research start-up funds of Ningbo University of Finance & Economics. In addition, this work was partially supported by the Korea University Business School Research Grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

Jingjing Xing: conceptualization, methodology, software, formal analysis, writing—original draft. Jia Shen: conceptualization, investigation, resources, writing—review and editing. Qiwei Pang: conceptualization, investigation, resources, writing—review and editing. Mingjie Fang: methodology, writing—review and editing. Hong Chen: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, data curation, resources, writing—original draft.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hong Chen.

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Ethical approval

According to institutional guidelines and national laws and regulations, ethical approval was not required as there was no unethical conduct in this study. We only conducted a questionnaire, and as this study did not involve human clinical trials or animal experiments, no further approval from the ethics committee was required.

Consent to participate

All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the “Declaration of Helsinki.” Respondents were assured of confidentiality and anonymity. All participation is voluntary.

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That its publication has been approved by all co-authors.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Responsible Editor: Arshian Sharif

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Xing, J., Shen, J., Pang, Q. et al. The finest diamond must be green: a closer look at the roles of institution in shipping firms’ sustainable practices. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 84631–84644 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-28368-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-28368-1

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