1. Introduction
Competence refers to a firm’s capacity to effectively utilize resources and organizational procedures to achieve the intended outcome. Learning from skills accumulated over a long period of time is a core competence. Since core competencies are difficult for competitors to replicate, they need to be managed and utilized to gain competitive advantage [
1]. A business’s core competency and how it develops over time are crucial to innovation and exporting, which guarantee the business’s long-term existence and sustained growth [
2]. Marczewska et al. (2020) [
3] stated that green core competences are considered crucial for firms’ green innovation. Both green product innovation and green process innovation involve the utilization and modification of these green core competencies [
4]. The theoretical basis of green core competence claims that possessing green core competence is essential for achieving green innovation performance, which in turn contributes to overall firm performance [
5]. Khan et al. (2023) [
6] indicate that green core competence has a positive impact on green organizational image, specifically in terms of environmental performance and green innovation practices. Furthermore, green core competence plays a moderating role in the connection between green intellectual capital and green organizational image [
7]. In this context, it is usual to consider core competencies as important values that increase the performance, efficiency, and competitiveness of an organization.
Utilizing diverse technologies in green process innovation allows companies to strive towards the objective of diminishing pollution and effectively managing waste, water, and raw resources to enhance production efficiency [
8]. It is also argued that manufacturing industries that adopt green process innovation can gain early action advantages and develop a green image [
9]. The increasing negative effects of people on the environment make it necessary to use sustainable methods as much as possible in processes related to the use of business resources and the fulfillment of business activities, and at this point, to turn to green innovation practices as opposed to classical innovation.
Recently, there has been an increasing awareness of social and environmental issues in society, which in turn encourages firms to review their responsibilities [
10]. Due to the increased awareness, more and more companies are now integrating sustainability into their strategy and operations [
11]. The concept of environmental consciousness, as explored in numerous studies, primarily encompasses the awareness of environmental issues, including the focus on, attitudes towards, and thoughts about environmental problems, and is manifested as the consciousness of preventing and mitigating environmental pollution and damage resulting from human activities [
12]. Building the sustainable consciousness of individuals is recognized as the key to guaranteeing a sustainable future [
13].
A sustainability drive might encompass programs that prioritize the use of innovative manufacturing technology, the development of new, environmentally friendly products, or the incorporation of eco-friendly practices into the supply chain [
14]. Sustainability consciousness, in the sense of using existing resources consciously and as much as necessary, is important in terms of protecting scarce resources, saving business resources, and as a result, protecting the environment. The concept of sustainability consciousness refers to more than just knowingness about sustainability, as it integrates the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of sustainable development and combines psychological constructs related to knowingness, attitudes, and behaviors towards these issues [
15].
In order to evaluate the proposed research model in line with the stated research objectives, two distinct research methods were employed, i.e., survey and interview. The survey method was chosen due to its ability to gather a substantial quantity of original data from a large number of participants. The semi-structured interview format was employed as an additional qualitative data collection approach. The objectivity, reliability, and validity of the research were ensured by the simultaneous evaluation of qualitative and quantitative data.
5. Text Mining Analysis of Interview Data
In the study, word clouds and hierarchical clustering, which are data mining methods, were used to reveal the focus of the answers obtained from the interview questions.
In this part of the research, preprocessing was first carried out on the digitized interview text data. In this process, in order to extract meaningful information from the corpus, the text was first converted to lower case with the text transformation process and the accents in the text were removed. Afterwards, the tokenization method was applied, in which the text was divided into smaller components (word, sentence, bigram). Using this method, the text was divided into words by omitting punctuation marks, according to Regexp. With filtering, non-informative textual elements in the English language, such as punctuation marks and tokens, were filtered out and excluded from the scope analysis.
In the next stage, the word cloud technique was used to extract the keywords most frequently used by the participants in the interviews, and the important words were visualized as a cloud. As can be seen in
Figure 5, the words more frequently used in the interview are presented closer to the center and bolder within the cloud.
According to
Figure 5, the most frequently used word in the interviews was “sustainability”. This shows that the participants attached great importance to sustainability. The second most frequently used word was “company”, indicating that the interviews largely focused on companies and their sustainability practices. The words “environmental”, “green”, and “practices” were also frequently used, indicating that respondents emphasized green and environmental practices. The frequency of the word “golf” perhaps reflects discussions around the protection of green spaces and the management of sustainable golf courses. As a result, the figure shows that the respondents focused on sustainability, green practices, environmental sensitivity, and waste management and thought that these issues had a significant effect on company performance. This result supports the primary objective of the research, which is to comprehend the impact of green core competences and green process innovation on the success of companies.
An annotated corpus map was used to visualize the interviews in two dimensions, with key lexicons [
87]. The clusters shown in
Figure 6 and the keywords belonging to each cluster were extracted using the TF-IDF method. In the process of making these inferences, the number of clusters was determined as five with Gaussian mixture models to define the clusters. In order to enrich the words with keyword annotations and place them in the vector space of the document, the document map was calculated with t-SNE and annotations were added.
In this study, documents including comments were embedded using Multilingual SBERT, a sentence-based transformer model that works in more than 50 languages. A vector representation of each embedded document was created. In order to characterize the documents with related words, the vector representations were placed in the vector space using t-SNE and made two-dimensional. Then, in order to find similar document groups, the annotated corpus map was obtained using the Gaussian mixture model; the map is presented in
Figure 6. In the figure, documents with similar placements are represented by single blue dots. It can be seen that the documents with similar meanings appear closer to each other. As can be seen in the map, similar comments are divided into five different clusters and these clusters are labelled with keywords. Some documents (blue dot representations) have been included in more than one cluster due to their similarities to both clusters. Thus, the annotated corpus map was created to visualize the comment data acquired in this study investigating the effects of green core competencies and green process innovation on firm performance. This visualization allows us to understand these concepts and follow the progress in this field. Therefore, this study can help us better understand the relationship between green process innovation and firm performance. This can help firms to achieve their sustainability goals.
The five clusters indicated in the visual diagram are:
Blue cluster: containing the words “operation”, “industry”, and “business”, this cluster refers to the operational aspects of businesses in industries;
Orange cluster: containing the words “profitability”, “competitors”, and “performance”, this cluster focuses on business performance metrics and the competitive landscape;
Red cluster: containing the words “sensitivity”, “follows”, and “natural”, this cluster indicates sensitivity to nature or environmental awareness;
Green cluster: containing the words “adopted”, “water”, and “however”, this cluster implies adaptations or innovations related to water;
Yellow cluster: containing the words “nature”, “attitudes”, and “training”, this cluster refers to training programs that shape attitudes about nature or environmental protection.
These clusters help us understand the effects of green process innovation on firm performance and the moderating role of sustainability consciousness on these effects. Each cluster represents a specific theme or topic and the combination of these themes constitutes the overall effect of green core competencies and green process innovation on firm performance. These effects emphasize the importance of green innovation for a sustainable future.
In addition, as seen in the image, the red cluster and the yellow cluster are intertwined. This shows that these two clusters are related to each other. Sensitivity, following, nature, attitudes, and training are interrelated concepts for companies. As a result of this analysis, it can be stated that the green core competencies of firms change depending on following green innovative processes, the attitudes and sensitivities of firms and employees on this issue, and the training received and provided on this issue.
The yellow cluster is related to the green cluster. It can be seen that adoption, water, nature, attitudes, and training are interrelated concepts. Water is a part of nature. In order for nature and these concepts, which are part of nature, to be adopted by companies, it can be suggested that the green core competencies of firms can be positively affected by providing training from the lowest to the highest levels of employees of the firms.
Furthermore, the corpus map obtained as a result of this study emerged as a useful tool for visualizing the key concepts and themes of the interviews with the participants.
The PMI (pointwise mutual information) measure was used to find the collocations and relationships of related words in the interview recordings [
88]. The optimum value of the frequency threshold of binary (bigrams) and ternary (trigrams) relations was set as 5 and n-grams with frequencies lower than the threshold were removed.
Table 6 presents the various binary relations (bigrams) and their scores. The scores were calculated using the PMI measure. Scores were calculated as the probability of a given binary occurring together divided by the probability of the components of the binary occurring separately. The higher the score, the more likely the two words were to occur together.
Influence Attitudes (7.778): this result shows that influencing the attitudes of the respondents is an important issue. This may suggest that green competencies and process innovation have a significant effect on employees’ attitudes;
Market Share (6.904) and Market Focus (6.904): These bigrams indicate that market share and focusing market are important. It is arguable that green process innovation can increase a firm’s market share and that market focus can affect green innovation efforts;
Golf Courses (6276), Golf Hotels (5598), Golf Hotel (5276), Niche Market (6904): these bigrams show that golf courses and golf hotels are part of the study. Their presence also indicates a niche market as the study was conducted only in golf hotels;
Green Capabilities (5.871): this result shows that green capabilities are important. These capabilities can be critical for a firm to achieve its sustainability goals;
Company Performance (4.788), Share Profitability (6.641): these scores indicate that company performance and profitability are important issues. It can be assumed that green competencies and process innovation can affect the overall performance and the profitability of the firm;
Sustainability Awareness (4.649), In-house Training (6.778) and Environmental Sensitivity (4.592): these bigrams indicate that sustainability awareness and environmental sensitivity are important both organizationally and personally. Accordingly, they can be considered as critical factors in the development of green process innovation and green competencies.
7. Conclusions and Discussion
The findings indicate that possessing green core skills has a beneficial impact on the development of green process innovation. The development of green core competencies is also related to innovation absorption. Therefore, organizations need to have innovative awareness and capability to develop green products and processes. This is only possible with the presence of green core competencies within the organization. Developing green core competencies involves considering environmental aspects in all processes from design to distribution. Within the organization, green core competencies play an important role in green innovation and the creation of a green image. In this context, an increase in the level green core competencies has an increasing effect on green process innovation practices. When these results are evaluated in terms of the results of the studies in the literature, it can be said that they are in line with the results of previous researchers. These include Qu et al. (2022) [
4] who concluded that green core competence positively and significantly affects green innovation performance, Al Halbusi et al. (2023) [
5] who revealed that green core competence had a positive effect on the green innovation performance of the enterprises included in their research, which then had a significant effect on firms’ performance in the form of competitive advantage, Nuryanto et al. (2020) [
16] who stated that core competence plays a role in improving the examined dimensions of the green competitive advantage variable and thus has managerial implications that can be used to increase the growth and profitability of the business, Chen (2008) [
50], whose empirical results showed that firms’ green core competencies have positive effects on green product innovation performance, green process innovation performance, and green image, and Bintara et al. (2023) [
96] who demonstrated that high environmental consciousness through the practice of green innovation leads to improved performance, better competitive advantage, and the development of sustainable businesses. The data on the scores obtained from the bigrams collocation table obtained from the qualitative interview data (green capabilities, company performance) also show that green capabilities are important and support the quantitative analysis data. The data provide guidance that these competencies can be critical for a firm to achieve its sustainability goals and that green capabilities and process innovation can affect the overall performance of the firm. These results are in line with other studies in the literature [
4,
50,
52]. Therefore, green core capabilities are important in terms of affecting the environmental performance of organizations by contributing to the development of less environmentally sensitive products and processes.
Another important result from the model is the positive effect of green process innovation on firm performance. Accordingly, a high level of green process innovation implementation increases firm performance. When these results are evaluated in terms of the results of the studies in the literature, it can be said that they are in line with the results of previous studies. These include the works of Ma et al. (2017) [
56], in which it was stated that green process innovation has a positive effect on firm image and can further increase the long-term benefit that firm image plays as a mediator, Cahyaningtyas et al. (2022) [
97], which concluded that green organizational social responsibility affects green innovation (green process innovation and green product innovation) and green process innovation and green product innovation affect the firm’s value, Bıçakcıoğlu et al. (2019) [
98], in which green business strategy is reported to have a strong and positive relationship with export financial performance, Lukitaruna and Sedianingsih (2018) [
8], which proved that green product innovation had a negative but non-significant effect on company performance, while green process innovation had a positive and significant effect on company performance, Tang et al. (2018) [
53], in which it was reported that both green products and green process innovation have a positive main effect on firm performance, while managerial concern has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between green process innovation and firm performance, and Maziriri and Maramura (2022) [
99], providing evidence that green product innovation and green process innovation contribute to the enhancement of sustainable competitive advantage and firm success.
The analysis of qualitative data showed that the words “employees”, “waste”, “performance”, and “sensitivity” were prominent in the interviews. These results are important in terms of showing that employees’ environmental sensitivity and the effect of waste management on the hotel’s performance are discussed. In addition, the data obtained from the bigrams collocation table (market share and focus, company performance) give an idea that green process innovation can increase a golf hotel’s market share and market focus can affect green innovation efforts. This result is in line with other studies in the literature [
9,
49,
53,
55,
64]. Although most of the studies in the literature obtained results indicating that green process innovation especially affects the financial performance of businesses, some studies [
55,
57,
61,
62] state that it affects the environmental and social performance of businesses and is therefore important. Green process innovation requires firms to improve all their processes from operational to managerial levels [
100]. In particular, the threat of depletion of natural resources and consumers’ awareness of this issue have revealed the importance of studies on green process innovation. The results obtained from the studies show that green process innovation is important because it provides various advantages to the economic, social, and environmental performance of businesses in the short, medium, and long term. From this perspective, green process innovation provides various advantages in terms of efficiency, competitive advantage, increasing market share, and creating new market opportunities. In the long run, these advantages support the creation of a green image for the organization. An enhanced environmental reputation for companies can impact consumers’ buying choices and boost the demand for eco-friendly products. Hence, a company’s investment in cultivating its environmentally friendly reputation might lead to increased financial profits [
59].
For this reason, it can be said that it is important for businesses to act by considering their green initiatives in their innovation processes.
The third hypothesis of the study related to the moderating impact of sustainability consciousness on the relationship between green process innovation and firm performance (H3). In this study, sustainability consciousness is considered in three dimensions: knowingness, attitude, and behavior. The results obtained in this context indicate that, unlike previous studies, the attitudinal and behavioral dimensions of sustainability consciousness have a moderating effect between the variables in question. Apart from these, no effect was found in the analysis conducted to measure the moderating role of the sustainability knowingness dimension on the effects of green process innovation on firm performance. Accordingly, it is concluded that sustainability knowingness dimension is not an important dimension of the effect of green process innovation on firm performance.
Although there is no study in the literature that tests the moderating role of sustainability consciousness dimensions among the relevant variables, as far as can be determined, in the context of the relationship between different variables and sustainability consciousness and environmental awareness variables, some relevant works hve been published. These include the study by Ahmed et al. (1998) [
101] in which businesses were divided into two groups, environmentally conscious and non-environmental businesses, in order to investigate the relationship between environmental strategy and company performance; it was seen that environmentally conscious businesses reported better performance scores and also tended to incorporate various performance improvement strategies and techniques into their operations. Firda et al. (2021) [
102] investigated the impact of a sustainability learning program on the development of students’ sustainability consciousness. Their findings highlighted the importance of employing learning strategies that offer ample opportunities for students to learn about sustainability issues and cultivate pro-sustainability attitudes and behaviors. Guiao and Lacap (2022) [
103] stated that the level of consciousness of individuals about protecting natural resources and keeping the environment intact leads to the possibility of consumers purchasing ecologically harmless goods and services. In various studies conducted in recent years, it has been determined that sustainability awareness plays an important role in sustainability practices [
57,
65,
70,
71]. However, in many studies encountered during the literature review, consciousness/awareness of sustainability has been evaluated according to a single dimension. This study, on the other hand, differs from other studies in that it deals with sustainability consciousness in three dimensions: knowingness, attitude, and behavior.
No other study has been identified that considers sustainability attitude as a dimension of sustainability consciousness and measures its moderating influence between the relevant variables in this specific setting, to the best of our knowledge. Similarly, no other study measuring the moderating role of sustainability consciousness and sustainability behavior between the related variables has been found, as far as can be determined. In this context, the results of the study differ from those of other studies.
Indeed, the evaluated results of the qualitative data in this study (annotated corpus map) help us to understand the effects of green process innovation on firm performance and the moderating role of sustainability consciousness on these effects. As a result of this analysis, it can be said that the green core competencies of firms vary depending on following green innovative processes, the attitudes and sensitivities of firms and employees regarding this issue, and the training received and provided on this issue. The data obtained from the bigrams collocation table having been evaluated, it can be stated that green competencies and process innovation have a significant effect on employees’ attitudes.
In addition, in relation to the qualitative analysis section, it can be stated that the word cloud technique, which was applied to illustrate the words most frequently used by the participants in the interviews, refers to the importance of the values obtained as a result of structural equation analysis at certain points. In parallel with the hypotheses determined and tested, the fact that sustainability attitude and sustainability behavior have a moderating role, as well as the fact that the most frequently used word identified via the use of the word cloud technique was “sustainability”, once again highlights the sensitivity of the participants to sustainability.
Similarly, in line with the hypotheses identified and tested, the facts that green core competencies have positive effects on green process innovation and green process innovation has positive effects on firm performance, as well as the fact that “environmental”, “green”, “practices”, “employees”, “waste”, “performance”, and “sensitivity” were among the words most frequently used identified as a result of the use of the word cloud technique, indicate that respondents attach importance to green practices and practices that do not ignore environmental awareness, and that the effect of green practices on hotel performance in the context of sustainable waste management and environmental protection is another important issue to be taken into consideration.
In addition, the fact that there is no other study in the literature that investigates the relationship between the variables included in this study with both quantitative and qualitative analysis makes this study different from the others.