Bridging CEO Educational Background and Green Innovation: The Moderating Roles of Green Finance and Market Competition

As a systematic project, corporate green innovation involves technological, organizational, and environmental dimensions. Therefore, its effective functioning is contingent on guidance from internal leadership. STEM represents an integration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. A STEM CEO is a chief executive officer holding a degree in science, engineering, agriculture, or medicine. However, research on the impact of STEM CEOs on green innovation is limited. Using data from Chinese listed manufacturing firms from 2010 to 2023, panel fixed effects models reveal that STEM CEOs positively influence corporate green innovation. Further analysis indicates that alleviating financing constraints, fostering external collaboration, increasing R&D investment, and improving the efficiency of innovation resource allocation are key pathways through which STEM CEOs enhance green innovation output. Furthermore, this impact is positively moderated by the level of green finance development and the intensity of market competition. Finally, heterogeneity tests demonstrate that these positive effects are more pronounced for firms with high public environmental concern, in non-heavily polluting industries, with strong ESG performance, and in highly competitive industries. These findings underscore the role of STEM leaders in enhancing the output of green innovation systems, offering actionable insights into the interaction between STEM CEOs and the external environment.