Decarbonization in complex supply chains: Insights from environmental absorptive capacity in China's E&E industry

The prior research has emphasized the importance of environmental management systems and decarbonization initiatives, limited attention has been given to the enabling mechanisms that allow firms to absorb, internalize, and operationalize environmental knowledge and practices throughout their supply networks. This paper seeks to address this gap by testing the argument that supply chain mapping enhances a firm's absorptive capacity for environmental management knowledge, thereby indirectly improving its decarbonization outcomes. More specifically, the study investigates whether and how mapping supply chains allows firms to better identify, acquire, and utilize environment-related knowledge and practices that lead to reduced carbon emissions, while also examining the moderating role of firm size in this relationship. The empirical context is China's electrical and electronics (E&E) sector, a critical industry that is simultaneously energy-intensive, highly export-oriented, and under increasing domestic and global pressure to decarbonize. The data was collected from a broad sample of firms in this sector using a structured, close-ended questionnaire designed to capture firm-level practices in supply chain mapping, environmental management absorptive capacity, and decarbonization performance. The analysis employed exploratory factor analysis to validate constructs and maximum likelihood estimations to test hypothesized relationships. The results reveal a detailed picture: supply chain mapping does not exhibit a direct statistically significant impact on firms' decarbonization outcomes. However, strong support is found for its indirect effect, operating through enhanced environmental management absorptive capacity, which acts as a crucial mediator. In other words, mapping supply chains equips firms with the structural and relational visibility necessary to identify environmental risks and opportunities, but the translation of this information into measurable decarbonization gains depends critically on their ability to absorb, process, and apply environmental knowledge. Furthermore, the analysis indicates that firm size plays an important role in shaping these dynamics. Larger firms appear better positioned to leverage supply chain mapping for building absorptive capacity, given their more extensive resource bases, greater institutional experience, and stronger stakeholder pressures, whereas smaller firms may face challenges in converting mapping insights into substantive decarbonization performance improvements. The novelty of this study lies in its integrated framework that links supply chain mapping, absorptive capacity, and decarbonization, thereby offering a fresh theoretical lens on how firms can more effectively pursue environmental sustainability in complex supply networks. By disentangling the direct and indirect pathways of influence, the paper contributes to the literature on environment management, supply chain management, and sustainability, while offering practical insights for managers and policymakers seeking to accelerate decarbonization in the Chinese E&E sector and beyond.