Exploring the effects of firms’ nationalist tendencies on their engagement in green innovation: an empirical study in China

Purpose In recent years, a global trend toward nationalism has emerged. This study adopts an attention-based view (ABV) of the firm to investigate the influence of firms’ nationalist tendencies on their green innovation engagement and its boundary conditions. Design/methodology/approach Using longitudinal data from a cross-industry panel of Chinese listed firms spanning the years 2007–2021, we employed a multidimensional fixed effects linear regression approach to test the hypotheses. Findings This study empirically demonstrates that firms with stronger nationalist tendencies are significantly more inclined to engage in green innovation, with robust results. Furthermore, the findings reveal that government environmental orientation and firm environmental subsidies positively moderate the relationship between firms’ nationalist tendencies and green innovation, while industry environmental uncertainty serves as a negative moderator. Originality/value By examining the influence of firms’ nationalist tendencies on their engagement in green innovation, this study enriches the research on the effects of nationalist tendencies and the antecedents of green innovation. Furthermore, this study integrates nationalist tendency into the ABV, offering novel empirical evidence on the situational attention factors that shape the effectiveness of firms’ nationalist tendencies in promoting green innovation, thereby advancing the study of the ABV framework.