Abstract As green management (GM) matters not only for firms' competitiveness but also has social and health benefits, both the public and government often expect firms to apply it. However, the current literature fails to provide a detailed explanation of how emerging market firms in high‐polluting manufacturing (HPM) industries deal with challenges when applying GM activities, even though these firms may be a key source of environmental problems. To address this research gap, we draw upon a subjectivist view of resource construction to investigate how and when HPM firms in emerging economies can rely on the tactic of bricolage to boost GM. We tested our research model on a sample of 180 chemical engineering manufacturing firms in China. Our results showed that HPM firms can rely on bricolage to positively implement GM, but its effects depend on the participation of different stakeholders. That is, firms can benefit more from bricolage in implementing GM when their suppliers can provide strong technical support and the moral requirements of the public are high. This study highlights the role of subjective resource construction activities in GM with the help of different stakeholder's participation in emerging economies and provides novel explanations and policy implications for this emerging phenomenon.
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