Keele Research Repository

Although green supply chain management strategy (GSCMS) plays an important role in the development of firms, there is still uncertainty about how to achieve a win–win between environmental and financial performance during the GSCMS diffusion process (e.g., the preparation stage and development stage). Thus, this study firstly examines whether the effects of the GSCMS on firm profits in different diffusion stages vary. Then, we test the moderating effect of the green initiatives (i.e., internal green certification, green cooperation improvement with the suppliers, green recovery with governments and green improvement with customers), operational process and business strategy on the effectiveness of GSCMS during the diffusion process. Based on 140 event samples over a time span of 19 years (i.e., 2001–2018), this study finds that the firms’ financial benefits decreased in GSCMS preparation stage and then increased in the development stage. Two green initiatives (i.e., green recovery with governments and green cooperation with suppliers), the differentiation strategy and process standardization, have positive influence on GSCMS diffusing in preparation stage. So, wisely using appropriate green initiatives, operational process and business strategy can mitigate the dark side of GSCMS in short-term and achieve a win–win between environmental and financial performance in the long term. These findings enrich the green supply chain literature and diffusion theory, and provide practical implications for firms to adopt environmental management strategies and offer some guidelines for governments to formulate environment management policies.