To walk in beauty: Sustainable leadership, frugal innovation and environmental performance

Considering the severe environmental climate in frontier Asia and the substantial role of the manufacturing industry for any economy, the present study investigates the mechanism of sustainable leadership‐environmental performance based on the upper echelon theory (UET). Data were collected from 500 employees of large manufacturing firms listed under the Pakistan Stock Exchange, Pakistan. The response rate in this study was 52.60%. Furthermore, structural equation modelling was adopted to test the proposed hypothesis. Based on the results, frugal innovation partially mediated sustainable leadership on environmental performance. The practical implications and limitations were also summarised in the study.