8. Green Motivation in China: Insights from a Large Hybrid Mixture of Ownership and Corporate Governance State-Owned Cashmere Producer

Evidence shows the understanding of green marketing and corporate green decision-making in China is still underdeveloped. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perception, motivation and marketing practices of a large joint-operated cashmere firm in the textile industry. Both Chinese domestic factors and international economic trends have contributed to the rapid restructuring of the Chinese cashmere industry into a highly dynamic, flexible and international openness towards green development. Drawing on the literature on firms’ motivations to go green and characteristics of firms which induce green initiatives, this paper selected a large hybrid mixture of ownership and corporate governance state-owned cashmere producer as basis for a case study. This study illustrates the central role of the top management team as the firm operator within the jointly owned state-owned firm and the influence of firm’s past history and value in their green initiatives. While findings from this case have confirmed some of the literature on green motivation, they also exposed the reform of state-owned firms’ ownership and governance for the firm contributes to more effective management and more efficient operations pursuing cost saving and profit-making, more responsiveness to market demand and in turn to increase the resource utilization efficiency and environmental performance. This research has hence provided new insights and policy implication for a successful transition towards a market economy in China with firms that are both economically strong and also socially and ecologically sustainable.