The efforts of manufacturing enterprises toward sustainable development under voluntary environmental policy: The roles of external pressure, attraction, and internal attributes

Abstract Based on the National Green Factory Policy (NGFP) issued by the Chinese government in 2016, we analyzed the list of manufacturing enterprises awarded the National Green Factory (NGF) designation in 31 provinces over the period 2017–2021. In this regard, we found that the local governments' political resources and soft pressure, and enterprises' profitability have a positive effect, while mimetic pressure has a negative effect on the tendency of manufacturing enterprises to declare NGF designation (hereafter, TENDENCY). Moreover, the positive effect of soft pressure was stronger when political resources were high (vs. low). Additionally, we observed a U‐shaped relationship between the enterprises' environmental pollution level and TENDENCY, and that profitability can weaken such relationship. This study contributes to the literature on the institutional theory and resource dependence theory, and provides new insights into how governments can develop voluntary environmental policies to incentive manufacturing firms to engage in green behaviors.