Executives with environmental backgrounds and corporate greenwashing: evidence from Chinese listed firms

Against the backdrop of China’s dual carbon goals, corporate greenwashing not only misleads investors but also impedes substantive progress in green development. However, there remains a need to better understand how executives with environmental backgrounds influence corporate greenwashing through internal governance processes. Using a sample of A-share firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2009 to 2023, this study empirically examines the effect of executives with environmental backgrounds on corporate greenwashing. The results show that executives with environmental backgrounds significantly curb corporate greenwashing. Mechanism analyses indicate that these executives reduce greenwashing by promoting substantive green innovation, improving environmental information disclosure quality, and mitigating managerial myopia. Further analyses reveal that this effect is more pronounced in non-heavily polluting industries and in information environments where the tone of media coverage is relatively negative. This study sheds light on the channels through which executives with environmental backgrounds affect corporate greenwashing and examines how industry-level environmental pressure and the external information environment shape this governance effect, thereby extending the application of upper echelons theory to corporate greenwashing research.