Digital Transformation Speed and Firms’ Environmental Performance: Do Green and Party-Member CEOs Matter?

While accelerating digital transformation has become a prevalent trend in management practices, our understanding of its impact on firms’ environmental performance (FEP) remains surprisingly limited. Drawing on the attention-based view, we propose that digital transformation speed has a negative effect on the FEP. We further propose that both green CEOs and party-member CEOs attenuate the negative effect of digital transformation speed on FEP. Using comprehensive data on Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2021, we find that digital transformation speed negatively affects FEP and that this effect is attenuated by green CEOs, whereas party-member CEOs do not have a statistically significant moderating effect on this relationship. Further analysis reveals that the negative relationship between digital transformation speed and FEP is more pronounced in regions with lower government environmental attention, more severe air pollution, and less market liberalization. Our study serves as a timely reminder of the potential negative implications for FEP and contributes new evidence to the growing body of literature on this topic.