China’s tourism industry is under transition towards sustainable tourism. This study’s primary purpose is to propose a novel framework that green core competence enhances the tourism industry’s green absorptive capacity and green innovation performance. Additionally, green absorptive capacity mediates the relationship between green core competence and green innovation. And finally, green organizational culture moderates the relationship between green absorptive capacity and green innovation. Data were collected from different hotels and restaurants in the North East of China, practicing environmentally friendly green practices through convenient sampling. The PLS-SEM technique was used to test each hypothesis. The results showed that green core competence positively and significantly affects green innovation performance, and green absorptive capacity mediates the relationship between green core competencies and green innovation performance. Moreover, green organizational culture partially moderates the relationship between green absorptive capacity and green innovation.

Purpose: The manufacturing industry has recently faced many environmental issues and pressures due to increased environmental awareness. Business leaders identified that green innovation (GI) is a crucial aspect of sustainable development (SD) and can provide a competitive edge. On the other hand, boosting SD through GI is a complicated network activity involving various partners, and there is a need to transmit or share knowledge equitably and acceptably. Following the natural resource-based view (NRBV), this research presents a novel framework for investigating how green knowledge sharing (GKS) and green dynamic capabilities (GDC) affect green creativity (GC) and GI directly and through GC. Besides, the moderation of mimetic pressure (MP) was also evaluated in these targeted relations, as it is a critical element for enhancing GI in the context of SD.Design/methodology/approach: Data consisted 232 respondents from Pakistani manufacturing industries, and seven substantial hypotheses were verified regarding the direct, mediating and moderating effect of targeted variables in confounding ways using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).Findings: According to the empirical findings, GKS and GDC positively correlate with GC and GI. Moreover, GKS and GDC significantly and positively impact GI both directly and indirectly. Furthermore, GC partially mediates GI, whereas MP has a significant moderating effect in these relationships.Originality/value: A significant correlation among these constructs was observed, demonstrating the conceptual framework for this study. These findings can assist practitioners and academics gain a better understanding of how to manage and evaluate GI in manufacturing projects at both the project and firm levels. Therefore, policymakers and project managers can enhance GI by focusing more on GKS, GDC, MP and GC.