IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v228y2024ics0167268124004268.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does family culture hamper corporate deceptive green behavior decision-making?

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Dongyang
  • Guo, Yichen
  • Vigne, Samuel A.

Abstract

Different categories of cultural traits have acknowledged that culture matters for a multiplicity of decisions made regarding economic outcomes. In response to the increasing awareness of cultural traits and their relationship to corporate sustainable behavior, this paper focused on one specific aspect of the relevance of culture: the association of family culture to green behaviors. This paper explored the nexus between family culture, the deceptive behavior of greenwashing, and firm performance in China, which provided original evidence that family culture firms have a significantly lower likelihood in participating in deceptive green behaviors as measured by greenwashing. By collecting the listed Chinese firms during 2011 to 2021, we estimated empirical models and drew a variety of conclusions accordingly. First, family culture firms have a negative and significant impact on greenwashing behaviors, leading to a decline in deceptive green production decision-making. Second, we further provided mechanisms which hamper family firms’ greenwashing behaviors into two perspectives: financial constraint and agency cost between shareholders and family managers. We recognized that financial constraints motivate family culture firms to greenwash, whereas the low agency cost related to family culture discourages family firms from greenwashing decision-making. Third, we provide very rich dimensions in discussion of heterogeneous effects. Specifically, within the internal family culture structure heterogeneities, family managers without overseas backgrounds, no generational or descendant involvement, and high family-controlled firms are even less involved in greenwashing decision-making. Moreover, with respect to external heterogeneities, family culture in pollution-intensive industries, highly regulated environmental firms, and Confucian social culture intensive regions, can significantly reduce greenwashing behaviors.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Dongyang & Guo, Yichen & Vigne, Samuel A., 2024. "Does family culture hamper corporate deceptive green behavior decision-making?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:228:y:2024:i:c:s0167268124004268
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2024.106812
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268124004268
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2024.106812?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:228:y:2024:i:c:s0167268124004268. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.