Impact of diversity of top management team on firm's green innovation: Evidence from China

Abstract

The diversity of top management team can bring more resources and opportunities to the enterprise and contribute to its green strategy. This research focuses on the relationship between diversity of top management team and green innovation and further identifies internal influencing mechanism. We employ the number of green patents, ratio of green patents, and the ratio of green inventions to describe and measure firm's green innovation. It finds that the diversity of top management team could trigger strategic green innovation rather than substantive green innovation of enterprise. There are positive impacts of diversity of top management team on number of green patents and ratio of green patents. There is no evidence that diversity of top management team promotes the ratio of green inventions. Based on heterogeneity analysis, we further confirm that the results mentioned above only exist in those firms with high energy consumption and high pollution. Meanwhile, this research examines the influencing mechanism and finds that the diversity of top management team stimulates number of green patents and ratio of green patent through reducing tunneling effect and enhancing internal control.