Green intellectual capital and environmental management accounting: Natural resource orchestration in favor of environmental performance

Abstract Taking inspiration from the natural resource‐based view of the firm and resource orchestration theory, we propose a new approach, that is, natural resource orchestration, to investigate how green intellectual capital and environmental management accounting stimulate environmental performance. Using survey data collected from 106 chief financial officers (CFOs) of publicly listed companies in Iran, findings show that the elements of green intellectual capital (green human capital, green structural capital, and green relational capital) are positively associated with both environmental management accounting and environmental performance. In addition, findings support the hypothesis that the use of environmental management accounting mediates the relationship between green intellectual capital and environmental performance. This study provides fresh insights into how an organization deals with the effective alignment (i.e., orchestration) of various green resources, for example, green intellectual capital and environmental management accounting, to promote environmental performance. This is the first study ever to introduce the natural resource orchestration approach for examining how environmental management accounting appears to play a role in translating green intellectual capital into enhanced environmental performance.