How does family ownership and management influence green innovation of family firms: evidence from China
European Journal of Innovation Management
ISSN: 1460-1060
Article publication date: 21 June 2022
Issue publication date: 2 January 2024
Abstract
Purpose
Based on the socio-emotional wealth and agency theories, this study empirically investigates the impact of family ownership and management on green innovation (GI) in family businesses, as well as the moderating effects of institutional environmental support factors, namely, the technological achievement marketisation index and the market-rule-of law index.
Design/methodology/approach
This study empirically tests the hypotheses based on a sample of listed Chinese family companies with A-shares in 14 heavily polluting industries from 2009 to 2019.
Findings
There is a U-shaped relationship between the percentage of family ownership and GI, and an inverted U-shaped relationship between the degree of family management and GI. Additionally, different institutional environmental support factors affect these relationships in different ways. As the technological achievement marketisation index increases, the U-shaped relationship between the percentage of family ownership and GI becomes steeper, while the inverted U-shaped relationship between the degree of family management and GI becomes smoother. The market rule-of-law index weakens the U-shaped relationship between family ownership and GI.
Originality/value
First, the authors enrich the research on the driving factors of GI from the perspective of the most essential heterogeneity of family businesses. This study shows nonlinear and opposite effects of family ownership and management on GI in family firms. Second, this study contributes to the literature on family firm innovation. GI, not considered by researchers, is regarded as an important deficiency in research on innovation in family businesses. Therefore, this study fills that gap. Third, the study expands research on moderating effects in the literature on GI from the perspective of institutional environmental support factors.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors' thanks go to the editor and the anonymous reviewers. The authors would like to acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 71772068 and no. 71972034). All remaining errors are the authors' own.
Citation
Yang, X., Shang, H., Li, W. and Lan, H. (2024), "How does family ownership and management influence green innovation of family firms: evidence from China", European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 170-192. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJIM-01-2022-0033
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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