How do corporate social responsibility initiatives enhance sustainability performance? Evidence from tobacco firms

Corporate social responsibility initiatives (CSRIs) have gained significant attention in the context of growing stakeholder expectations for environmental protection, competitive pressure, and utilizing existing resources for any organization’s sustainability. Although prior scholars investigated the CSRI consequences in the sustainability context, these investigations examined them in isolation. Thus, exiting research lacks a single nomological framework to consider green intellectual capital (GIC) and green human resource management (GHRM) despite their importance. Accordingly, this paper investigates the impact of CSRIs on sustainability performance (SP) in the tobacco industry, using the resource-based view (RBV) theory as a foundation. Besides, this paper investigates the pivotal roles of GIC and GHRM in the CSRI–SP linkage. Data were collected from 324 managers at Pakistani tobacco firms and analyzed using WarpPLS 7. Findings indicate that GIC and GHRM resources significantly influenced tobacco firms’ sustainability. Furthermore, this paper found that GIC and GHRM serially mediated the CSRIs–SP relationship. Based on RBV, this paper provides valuable insights for decision-makers and academics in the green HRM context.