Green practices and operational performance: the moderating role of agility

This research paper seeks to verify how the impact of green practices on operational performance can be improved when firms are agile. In fact, agility can offer original and effective contributions to make the firms' operations greener. Using a combination of statistical techniques, our analysis develops in two steps. First, it investigates the relationships between green practices and operational performance; second, it verifies the moderating role of agility within the aforementioned relationships. The findings of the first step are twofold: 1) firms can enjoy increasing levels of operational performance when focusing on green practices linked to the circular economy, specifically: recycling, recovery, and reuse; 2) eco-materials and green packaging do not have any significant impact on operational performance. In the second step, our findings suggest that agility can completely reverse the impact of green practices on operational performance. In fact, when agility plays a moderating role, recycling, recovery, and reuse do not provide any significant impact on operational perfor-mance, while eco-materials and green packaging have a positive influence on firms' operations. Accordingly, firms seeking to improve their operational performance through green practices should focus their investments on the capability to be agile.