Top management team biographical similarity and persistent green innovation: Evidence from Chinese listed companies

Daquan Gao and Songsong Li

Research in International Business and Finance, 2025, vol. 77, issue PB

Abstract: This research integrates upper echelons with institutional theories to examine how top management team (TMT) biographical similarity influences persistent green innovation. Using NLP analysis on 21,360 firm-year observations from Chinese listed companies (2013–2022), we find that TMT biographical similarity enhances persistent green innovation through the mediating role of green total factor productivity (GTFP), with institutional pressures further strengthening this effect. Our contributions include: (1) transforming upper echelons methodology from static demographics to dynamic cognitive profiling through semantic pattern recognition in executive biographies, bridging management with computational linguistics; (2) challenging diversity-innovation assumptions by demonstrating how strategic consistency from biographical similarity drives green innovation through GTFP as the pathway translating executive coherence into sustainability performance; and (3) revealing how shared TMT interpretive schemas filter institutional pressures, enabling strategic adaptation while establishing micro-foundations for sustained environmental strategies. From a managerial perspective, firms should strategically compose TMTs with shared career experiences, incorporate green productivity metrics into performance evaluations, and develop institutional engagement strategies tailored to varying regulatory pressures to optimize long-term sustainability outcomes.

Keywords: Top management team; Biographical similarity; Persistent green innovation; Natural language processing; Green total factor productivity; Institutional Pressures (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0275531925002570
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:riibaf:v:77:y:2025:i:pb:s0275531925002570

DOI: 10.1016/j.ribaf.2025.103001

Access Statistics for this article

Research in International Business and Finance is currently edited by T. Lagoarde Segot

More articles in Research in International Business and Finance from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().