Stakeholders expect focal firms to improve their environmental performance. While firms may be able to accumulate the environmental expertise needed to achieve this goal internally, doing so may require significant time and resource commitments. Alternatively, buyer firms can leverage their suppliers’ existing environmental expertise and gain access to such expertise when they purchase products and services from these suppliers. The purpose of this study was to develop and test theory regarding under what conditions suppliers’ environmental expertise influences a buying firms’ procurement spend with these suppliers. We ground our study in transaction cost economics and agency theories and empirically test our hypotheses using a unique buyer–supplier dyadic data set. We find that buyer firms are willing to increase their overall business spend with suppliers that have strong environmental expertise, particularly when the buyer firms are more profitable and have higher levels of absorptive capacity. However, we find the opposite effect when the buyer firm’s executive compensation is linked to the firm’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. Likewise, we also find that the buyer firm’s environmental concern ratings negatively moderate the relationship between the supplier’s environmental expertise and the buyer’s procurement spend with the supplier.

中文翻译：

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公司会在具有环境专业知识的供应商上花费更多吗？美国制造商采购支出的实证研究

利益相关者期望重点公司改善其环境绩效。虽然公司可能能够在内部积累实现此目标所需的环境专业知识，但这样做可能需要大量时间和资源。另外，买方公司可以利用其供应商现有的环境专业知识，并在从这些供应商购买产品和服务时获得这些专业知识。这项研究的目的是开发和检验关于在什么条件下供应商的环境专业知识会影响采购公司与这些供应商的采购支出的理论。我们的研究基于交易成本经济学和代理理论，并使用唯一的买方－供应商二元数据集对我们的假设进行实证检验。我们发现，买方公司愿意与具有较强环境专业知识的供应商合作，以增加其整体业务支出，尤其是当买方公司利润更高且吸收能力更高时。但是，当买方公司的高管薪酬与公司的环境，社会和治理（ESG）绩效挂钩时，我们发现相反的效果。同样，我们还发现，买方公司的环境关注度等级对供应商的环境专业知识与买方与供应商的采购支出之间的关系产生负面影响。当买方公司的高管薪酬与公司的环境，社会和治理（ESG）绩效挂钩时，我们发现相反的效果。同样，我们还发现，买方公司的环境关注度等级对供应商的环境专业知识与买方与供应商的采购支出之间的关系产生负面影响。当买方公司的高管薪酬与公司的环境，社会和治理（ESG）绩效挂钩时，我们发现相反的效果。同样，我们还发现，买方公司的环境关注度等级对供应商的环境专业知识与买方与供应商的采购支出之间的关系产生负面影响。