How Cognitive Heterogeneity Drives Green Patents: Evidence from Chinese Firms

Sammanfattning

Following approximately three decades of rapid economic growth since the 1980s, in China, more attention has been paid to the sustainability of economic growth. Since 2010, as the main actors of economic activity, Chinese enterprises must face stricter regulatory and policies driving them toward greener transformation. Based on this background, this study will discuss the effect of top management team (TMT) cognitive heterogeneity on corporate green innovation. A total of 40314 samples of Chinese listed companies from 2006 to 2023 were obtained, which were used to study the impact of TMT cognitive heterogeneity on corporate green innovation. Since we think TMT with different backgrounds and perspectives are more likely to make better decision-making of green innovation, we expect cognitive heterogeneity to be important, which is the sum of the heterogeneities in educational background and overseas experience. In addition, this paper conducted robustness test, heterogeneity analysis and mediation effect analysis. The baseline regression shows that TMT cognitive heterogeneity has a significant positive effect on corporate green innovation, which is estimated by the number of applications of green patent. According to the heterogeneity test result, the effect is more significant in eastern regions, technology-intensive and capital-intensive industries, while there is no difference between SOEs and non-SOEs. Mediation effect test shows that ESG, Risk-taking Level and R&D investment are mediating variables in the effect path.