Top management teams' foreign experience, environmental regulation, and firms' green innovation

Abstract

In this study, we examine how top management teams' foreign experience affects firms' green innovation performance and what role environmental regulation plays in their association. Using a large data set on firms' green patents and foreign work or education experience of top management teams from China, we find robust evidence that firms whose top management team members have foreign experience achieve significantly more green patents, and this positive relationship is more pronounced for firms subject to strong environmental regulation. Our findings indicate that via enhancing firms' green innovation performance, top management teams' foreign experience has a positive corporate governance effect on advancing sustainable social development, and environmental regulation is helpful to promote this effect.