How to Promote Medium-Sized Farms to Adopt Environmental Strategy to Achieve Sustainable Production during the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Abstract

To achieve sustainable production in medium-sized farms, this research proposes a hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to predict environmental strategy (ES), which is a crucial source of sustainable production. Based on the theory of upper echelons, the present research puts forward that the environmental leadership (EL) of the chief executive officer (CEO) at phase one affects the development of environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) adoption, which in turn affects the development of ES adoption over time. The empirical data were obtained through a three-stage sampling method of 90 CEOs and 270 members of senior management teams (SETs) of Taiwanese medium-sized farms, over a period of six months. The research results support that the higher level of CEO EL at phase one results in the development of ECSR adoption, which in turn results in the development of ES adoption. This research opens a new direction for sustainable production by showing how to implement ES through organizational management mechanisms (EL). These findings can fill the gaps in the literature on the sustainable production of farms and can also help these farms to achieve sustainable production by adopting ES.