The Peer Effects of Green Management Innovation in China’s Listed Companies

Green management innovation meets the requirements of sustainable development and is conducive to achieving an organic unity of economic, social, and ecological benefits for enterprises. Based on the peer effects theory, this study constructs a fixed-effects model to empirically analyze the existence, action mechanism, moderation, and heterogeneity of peer effects on green management innovation behavior using panel data from listed Chinese companies from 2012 to 2022. The results indicate that peer effects significantly positively impact green management innovation, and the robustness test verifies the results in various ways. Furthermore, the mechanisms of peer effects from the perspectives of information learning and competition have been explored in this study. Specifically, peer effects are more likely to be promoted when enterprises possess a greater capacity for information acquisition, higher environmental uncertainty, and stronger environmental regulations. Notably, the peer effect of green management innovation is more significant for enterprises that face higher financing constraints, are in non-heavily polluting industries, and are supported by industrial policies. This study not only helps clarify the potential real motivation of corporate green management innovation but also provides strong empirical evidence for developing relevant policies and regulations.