How Green Bankers Promote Behavioral Integration of Green Investment and Financing Teams—Evidence from Chinese Commercial Banks

Abstract

Facing the need for green investment and financing brought about by the process of “carbon neutrality”, more and more leaders of commercial banks have begun to initiate green transformation of their enterprises and become green bankers with green finance awareness and vision, while their subordinate green investment and financing teams, as executive units with complementary green finance knowledge, skills, information, and expertise, have become a key link in the bank’s green investment and financing management. Relying on structuration theory and using the multi-case study method, this research analyzes how green bankers promote the behavioral integration of green investment and financing teams from the perspective of team structure construction and deconstructs the process of transforming the development vision of green bankers into green investment and financing practices. Through a pairing study of eight commercial banks, it was found that green bankers can build a green investment and financing team structure to promote their behavioral integration through resources and rules. There are six effective strategies in the construction behavior, including: building a consensus on green finance strategy within the enterprise; guiding the green investment and financing team to exploratively learn green finance knowledge; facilitating collaboration across positions; implementing a fair “result-oriented” salary structure; granting rights to subordinate employees who are competent for green investment and financing tasks; and building a job division and operation mechanism with clear responsibilities. Finally, suggestions are put forward to improve the salary system of green bankers, optimize the training system of green financial talents, and use digital management to ensure the independent authority of green investment and financing positions.

1. Introduction

As the global economy continues to pay close attention to issues such as sustainable economic development and environmental security, more and more countries and regions regard carbon peaking and carbon neutrality as important social and economic development goals. In the process of greening the economic structure, green finance, because of its functions such as cost sharing and risk sharing [1], becomes valued by the leaders of commercial banks, and the green investment and financing teams within the banks, as the implementation units with complementary knowledge, skills, information, and expertise, have become the key link in the practice of green finance. However, the question remains as to how to make the green investment and financing team of a commercial bank not just a collection of scattered individuals, or even a small group competing for green financial resources, or a passive executor obeying collective thinking, but a team that can truly share green knowledge and information and realize green investment and financing with complementary skills. In this process, it is of great importance how green bankers (commercial bank senior managers with green transformation awareness and vision and responsible for promoting green financial business indicators), who are responsible for promoting the green transformation of commercial bank business structure, exert their leadership and effectively manage the green investment and financing teams to achieve behavioral integration. Behavioral integration was proposed by Geletkanycz [2] to describe and evaluate team behavior more accurately, including the evaluation of team integration from three dimensions: (1) richness, timeliness, and accuracy of information exchange; (2) cooperative behavior among team members; and (3) collective decision-making within the team. Hambrick [3] pointed out that the concept of behavioral integration can more accurately reflect the essence and spirit of the team’s operation process. Compared with terms such as social integration and team cohesion, which focus on exploring and evaluating the sentimental and emotional interactions of team members, behavioral integration emphasizes the communication and cooperation of team members based on specific tasks and behavioral goals; compared with terms such as team communication and team interaction, which focus on information interaction among team members, behavioral integration has a more comprehensive and accurate summary of the team operation process.

Based on structuration theory, this research develops a theoretical framework on how green bankers design green investment and financing team structures to promote behavioral integration, enriches the theoretical system of behavioral finance and green finance research, and analyzes the applicability and heterogeneity of top management team and leadership in financial institution management research. Existing studies have found that behavioral integration has varying degrees of influence on individual team members, business units, decision-making quality, organizational performance, etc. However, existing studies often treat team behavioral processes as a “black box” and fail to explain how high-level team behavioral integration takes place. It has also failed to explore how to improve the integration of team behavior in the process of green finance transformation at commercial banks and effectively transform the green vision into practical green financial practices such as green investment and financing. Relying on the framework of structuration theory, this study starts with the idea that the leaders of Chinese commercial banks often play a leading role in investment and financing decisions, finds the main factors that affect the operation efficiency of the green investment and financing team, and explores how green bankers can build a green investment and financing team structure to improve behavioral integration.

The first theoretical contribution of this research is to analyze how green bankers promote the development of green finance business in commercial banks by constructing a green investment and financing team structure. This study decomposes the codes of signification, normative elements, and authoritative resources that are set when green bankers construct team structures from a structuration theory perspective [4] and describes the process of achieving team behavior integration more accurately. The research findings challenge the traditional research framework of leadership that focuses on the personal traits of leaders. The study confirms that setting up a scientifically designed team structure is also beneficial to the green transformation of commercial bank business structures, thus compensating for the limitations of previous studies. The second theoretical contribution of the study is to enrich leadership theory. By verifying it in commercial banking management cases, the study proves that leaders can influence team behavior by optimizing team structures, confirming that scientific team management can still effectively improve team efficiency in emerging financial fields such as green investment and financing, which lack previous experience. The third theoretical contribution of the study is to enrich the theoretical framework of green finance. Previous studies have focused more on how macroeconomic policies guide commercial banks to carry out green finance business. There is still a gap in the theoretical exploration of how bankers’ personal green visions can be realized as achievements in green investment and financing business during the green development process of commercial banks.

In addition, this study has some practical value for the development of green banking. Specifically speaking, in the financial industry, where organizational structures become increasingly flatter, green bankers (senior managers of commercial banks who are responsible for promoting green financial business indicators) have a lot of corporate power and financial resource allocation capabilities and therefore have more influence in building organizational management structures than middle-level and low-level managers [5]. By guiding green bankers through theoretical research to build a structural system for green financial transformation in their work and by developing and relying on the structural strength to form green organizational attributes of their enterprises, significant momentum can be generated for the green transformation of the banking industry and even the entire financial industry.

2. Literature Review and Theoretical Basis

2.1. Previous Research on the Relationship between Green Bankers and Green Investment and Financing Teams

To explore the influence mechanism between green bankers and green investment and financing teams, it is necessary to fully review the previous research on the interaction between team leaders and management teams. The interaction between team leaders and management teams has always been an important research field for academia. The previous research has mainly examined the relationship between team leaders and management teams from the perspective of team leaders’ own personalities or their management models. Research from the perspective of leadership theory has found that transformational team leaders can effectively predict team development problems, reach consensus on important issues with management team members through personal judgment, and are positively related to the atmosphere of trust among team members, thereby positively affecting organizational performance [6]; relational leaders can promote trust among management team members, affects their ability to learn from failure and ultimately affect the quality of decision-making [7]; empowering leaders can shape the behavioral integration and team effectiveness of management team members [8]; the monopoly of team leadership power will limit management team integration, thereby limiting the management team’s capability of tracking and responding to competitors [9]. Research from the perspective of personality traits has found that the personality of the team leader has an important impact on team action mechanisms and work ability [10], the personal information network of the team leader can affect organizational flexibility [11], and the experience of the team leader and the shared values of the team leader and other team members can affect the information exchange among team members [12].

In addition to examining the personality traits of team leaders, there are studies examining the impact of team leaders’ interactions with management teams on management teams. For example, the research of Lin et al. [13] argues that the interaction between team leaders and the management team affects the psychological empowerment of the management team, and the research of Cheung et al. [14] has found that humble leaders are more able to stimulate team creativity. Feenstra et al. [15] have analyzed the impact of team leaders’ sharing of power on power stability and team trust. These studies have strengthened our understanding of the relationship between team leaders and team members, but there is still a lack of theoretical research on the specific mechanisms by which team leaders affect team behavioral integration.

There have been some research results discussing the influencing factors that influence leaders to realize their vision. In the early 1980s, Bennis et al. [16] believed that leaders must act as social architects for the organization by changing the organizational culture. Subsequent research further clarified that the central job of leadership is to design and construct organizational structures [17]. In a management team, if the team leader can improve the management team structure, then the integration of management team behavior can be effectively promoted. For example, by setting up a system to encourage open discussion, personal conflicts caused by cognitive differences among management team members can be avoided, confusion and distrust among team members can be avoided, and even the political game among team members can be eliminated to a large extent [18]. In recent years, some studies have proposed that leaders’ vision can enhance leaders’ influence on individuals’ and the team’s ability to deliver [19] and that challenging stressors experienced in the workplace can enhance performance outcomes [20].

It can be said that the leader’s personality traits are the starting point of leadership research. After decades of research, the leadership research model has undergone extensive changes, and the accumulated literature is extremely abundant. However, the focus of most current research on new leadership (charismatic leadership, transformational leadership, authentic leadership, ethical leadership, paternalistic leadership, etc.) is still on how the specific personality traits or behaviors of leaders, and the research perspective is still how leaders use their own personality traits to influence their subordinates. In the field of strategic leadership, it is also emphasized that different leadership styles can lead to different results. For example, Waldman et al. [21] found that charismatic leadership affects the cohesion and effort of team members, which ultimately affects organizational performance; Ling et al. [13] found that transformational CEOs influence team members’ behavioral integration, risk propensity, decentralization of responsibilities, and ultimately affect corporate entrepreneurship.

If we narrow down the literature review to leadership research based on banking industry data, we can indeed find some studies using banking industry data [22]. However, in these studies, the research objects are generally middle- and low-level leaders and front-line staff of the bank engaged in traditional businesses and thus have limited significance in guiding how to promote the development of green financial business. The reason may be that, after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, in order to prevent the occurrence of large-scale systemic risks caused by the abuse of financial instruments under the credit currency system, the banking industry is subject to increasingly strict industry norms and regulatory constraints. These industry characteristics lead to the highly homogenized organizational mechanisms, information disclosure rules, available investment and financing tools, and marketable investment and financing products of commercial banks. A more effective approach is to cultivate bankers’ green vision and guide them to pay more attention to green finance business [5].

Green investment and financing have been paid more and more attention by commercial banks, and it is difficult to change the personal characteristics or leadership style of green bankers, but the structured and institutionalized team management mechanism is easier to change and build. Thus, this study emphasizes the role of leaders in constructing structure and, through structure, influencing the behavior of management teams, regardless of the leader’s personality traits. For example, even if the leader is not good at words, as long as he can design a remuneration system with fair distribution and reasonable rules approved by the management team, it can also have a positive impact on the behavior of the management team. At present, some studies have used the empirical evidence of the Chinese market to analyze the relationship between team structure and behavioral integration, but most of the research objects are traditional manufacturing or service enterprises, and the unique features of the banking industry, especially the green finance industry, are neglected [23,24]. Therefore, this study aims to explore how the leaders of commercial banks can promote the behavioral integration of green investment and financing management teams from the perspective of social structure, to fully reflect the particularity of the organizational structure and leadership mechanism of commercial banks while utilizing existing theoretical achievements, to construct a theoretical framework to explore how commercial banks’ green investment and financing teams understand and perceive the team structure, form the rationality and motivation of green investment and financing actions, and thus to provide a theoretical basis for green bankers to effectively manage green investment and financing teams to promote green investment and financing practices. The theoretical analysis of this study is mainly based on structuration theory, which will be introduced below.

2.2. Structuration Theory

Structuration theory is a classic sociological theory used to explain effective interactions and isomorphic relationships within groups [4,25]. The theory holds that social structure has a duality; that is, human behavior is not only conditioned by the structure but also reshapes it. In this duality, structure and action are interdependent, forming a continuous and dynamically evolving practice system [26]. Structure can be understood as the rules and resources that are constantly involved in the reproduction process of the social system. Rules and resources are closely related to practice, and they are not only generalizations of people’s actions but also norms and directions for them (see Figure 1). This study uses structural theory to analyze the main factors affecting the efficiency of green investment and financing teams.

Rules embody the conscious relationship between people and refer to the values and cognitive methods held by people in the implementation of social practice and reproduction activities. Rules include codes of signification and normative elements. Codes of signification are a consensus on what is important in social life, such as the organizational vision recognized by employees; normative elements emphasize the rules that people need to abide by in their actions and that once they do not comply, they will be disciplined and punished, such as rewards and punishment regulations in project management. Resources include allocative resources and authoritative resources. Allocative resources are tools and means of practice, and what they provide is people’s ability to control and dominate the material world, such as basic working conditions; authoritative resources are also tools and means of practice, but what they provide is people’s ability to control and dominate people, such as the statutory authority of the staff. Allocative and authoritative resources are the main means and basic tools for actors to expand their control over nature and people, so they have an important position and role in practical activities. Actors act under the constraints or promotion of rules and resources. In turn, because actors are aware and active, their actions also affect the formulation of rules and the acquisition of resources.

Structuration theory has strong explanatory power in explaining the interaction between agents and structures. This theory is not only recognized for explaining social behavior [27], but it is also applied to explain the relationship between the corporate institutional environment and employee behavior [25]. Employees’ attitudes towards organizational innovation and their cooperation with others are often guided and constrained by these rules and resources within the organization [28]. Similarly, these employees may also influence or create new rules for work practices [25]. Structuration theory is very helpful for us to systematically understand the relationship between team structure and behavioral integration and provides a theoretical basis for this study.

2.3. Theoretical Assumptions about the Relationship among Green Bankers, Team Structure, and Behavioral Integration

Structuration theory holds that a team’s behavioral integration (team action) is closely consistent with the team structure (social structure) in which it is located and corresponds to the definition of social structure. In the case of this study, the research team divides the management team structure of commercial banks into team rules and team resources. Team rules affect members’ knowledge and understanding; team resources constitute the tools and capabilities to complete green investment and financing tasks. Orlikwoski [29] pointed out that the various institutions and structures existing in the organization are constructed by high-powered managers, and Sharma et al. [30] proposed in their research that leaders guide employees’ work attitudes and behaviors by restructuring the institutional environment. When commercial banks make green investment and financing decisions, green bankers have the most management and financial resources, the greatest decision-making power and influence, and the strongest behavioral independence, and thus play a leading role in the construction of team structure. Therefore, this study believes that green financiers can influence team behavior and enhance the integration of team behavior by constructing green investment and financing team structure. Based on the theoretical results of previous research, the theoretical framework of this research (see Figure 1) is proposed as the main theoretical basis for guiding the analysis and interpretation of multiple cases. In the process of concrete analysis, rules will be subdivided into codes of signification and normative elements; resources include allocative resources and authoritative resources.

3. Research Methods

This study adopts a multi-case research method to enhance the accuracy and credibility of the research. The reasons for this research method are as follows: First, this paper explores how green bankers need to build a team structure to promote the behavioral integration of their subordinate green investment and financing teams. To answer the “how” question and to probe into the unique hidden characteristics of the team structure to be analyzed, in-depth analysis through interviews is required. Therefore, the case study method is suitable for this type of research [31]. Second, commercial banks of different scales and types have certain differences in their management mechanisms. The multi-case study iteratively supplements multiple commercial banks with different organizational structures, scales, and business philosophies, making the research findings more accurate, general, and credible, thus effectively avoiding the particularity of research findings brought by a single case study [32]. Third, multiple case studies can screen different types of commercial banks, set up paired case groups and extreme case groups, and discover their commonalities and differences, which is conducive to discovering and establishing theoretical structures and increasing the depth of the results of case analysis.

3.1. Case Selection

In accordance with the requirements of case study design and sampling principles [31], this study selected cases based on the following three criteria: First, to explore what team structure green bankers need to build to promote behavioral integration, this study selected contrastive cases, i.e., enterprises whose behavioral integration degree is better than the general level of the industry and enterprises whose behavioral integration degree is lower than the general level of the industry, so as to meet the requirements of extreme case studies on the research objects. Second, the types of commercial banks studied need to be diversified, and the business focus of commercial banks has a certain degree of industry dispersion, thereby increasing the applicability of the research results to different types of commercial banks and different types of green finance. To meet the requirements of a diversified selection of research objects, the selected commercial banks include state-owned joint-stock commercial banks, national joint-stock commercial banks, private commercial banks, city commercial banks, and rural commercial banks, and green investment and financing business include large-scale national key construction projects, inclusive financial projects, science and technology financial projects, and other traditional and transformational financial fields. Third, the interviewees are the senior executives of commercial banks and their subordinate green investment and financing teams responsible for managing and promoting green financial business, and the sufficiency of the interview content must be guaranteed.

In order to obtain sufficient interview information, this study selected 12 commercial banks in different regions, such as the Wuhan urban circle, Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration, and Xiang-Jing-Yi urban agglomeration, to conduct preliminary research on target enterprises. These banks were all involved in the green transformation construction project of natural scenic areas designed by the authors of this study. These 12 commercial banks were analyzed in terms of green investment and financing team cooperation, collective decision-making, and information exchange. For the sake of the matching case and extreme case analysis of the research design, the banks need to be grouped according to their types, scales, and key business areas. Finally, eight commercial banks are chosen. Since the content of the interview involves business secrets such as the management structure of the enterprise and the research results may have an impact on the business reputation of the interviewed institutions, this study conceals the real names of the enterprises and the interviewees in all materials. The basic information of the interviewed commercial banks is shown in

Table 1. Basic information of the chosen commercial banks.

Enterprise Code	Nature of Bank	Integration	Interviewees
			Position	Number of People
A	State-owned shareholding system	High	Branch head of green finance, branch head, senior business manager	5
B	State-owned shareholding system	High	Senior experience at branch head level, branch head, department manager	5
C	National shareholding system	High	Regional green finance business leaders, branch heads and approvers	4
D	Private Commercial Banks	High	Vice president of the head office, branch heads and department managers	3
E	National shareholding system	Low	Green finance business leader, department manager, credit manager	3
F	City Commercial Bank	Low	Vice President of the head office, department manager, account manager	4
G	Rural Commercial Bank	Low	Green finance business leader, marketing executive, credit manager	4
H	Private Commercial Banks	Low	Department heads, marketing executives, department heads	3

.

3.2. Data Collection and Data Analysis

Crabtree et al. [33] proposed that depth interviewing is most likely to induce interviewees to share empirical evidence of their experiences and to bring interviewees and researchers together to jointly construct a framework for the specificity of research content. Therefore, this study conducted in-depth interviews with the green bankers and green investment and financing teams from eight commercial banks by means of semi-structured and open-ended question methods and conducted on-the-spot investigations on the green finance investment and financing bidding processes of the interviewed teams to obtain first-hand information. Question outlines were designed for in-depth interviews with green bankers and their subordinate green investment and financing teams to conduct diversified data demonstrations. Some questions are as follows: How do you influence the cooperation of credit managers? What methods and mechanisms are used to promote the cooperation of the corporate team? Ask the credit managers: What factors do you think affect the level of cooperation between the corporate team and the personal loan team? While paying attention to the internal operation of the green investment and financing team, we also pay attention to the external changes faced by the team and the competitive environment in the industry. We require green bankers and credit team members to try their best to tell facts, provide specific content, and recall work details. The total length of the interview recording is about 35 h, which is about 370,000 words after being transcribed.

Interview analysis includes two parts: the internal analysis of a single commercial bank and the differentiation analysis of multiple commercial banks [31]. Specifically, the internal analysis of a single bank is a separate analysis of the credit teams of the interviewed commercial bank, summarizing the differences in the concepts of independent green bankers integrating credit teams to promote green investment and financing. In the single-case analysis stage, the inductive analysis method is mainly employed to process the materials and data. The research focus is on discovering and summarizing the organizational characteristics and personnel interactions of the green investment and financing team. The research process at this stage is mainly based on discovery and exploration, and no question is presupposed. In order to achieve independent logical replication, this stage does not focus on the uniqueness and commonalities between cases. In the cross-case analysis stage, this study draws on the team behavioral integration scoring standard adopted by Yao et al. [24] to identify the effectiveness of behavioral integration and group the subjects by high and low effectiveness (see

Table 2. Evaluation of behavioral integration degree of green investment and financing teams.

Enterprise Code	Integration	Open Communication Scenarios			Teamwork Scenarios			Decision-Making Participation Scenarios
		a	b	c	a	b	c	a	b	c	d
A	High		Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes
B	High	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes		Yes		Yes
C	High	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes
D	High		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes	Yes
E	Low		Yes				Yes
F	Low										Yes
G	Low				Yes
H	Low			Yes			Yes			Yes

Note: The evaluation criteria for the behavioral integration of green investment and financing teams are: open communication scenarios: a. relevant information can be fully shared when making decisions; b. informal communication is often conducted; c. mutual expectations and requirements are often discussed. Teamwork scenarios: a. other members are helped and work tasks are shared; b. mutual support at work; c. shared information about problems about work cooperation. Decision-making model: a. everyone is encouraged to put forward different opinions; b. different opinions are taken seriously; c. there are arguments; d. there are heated debates.

).

After comparative analysis of the two groups of subjects, the team structure characteristics that help green investment and financing team behavioral integration are identified and summarized through cross-comparison and replication logic. Finally, the findings of the single-case analysis are reviewed to categorize similar characteristics that exist in the single-case analysis. In the whole analysis process, the image-data-assisted analysis method proposed by Miles et al. [34] and the analysis method of interview material analysis and literature comparison adopted by Eisenhardt et al. [32] were comprehensively used. In this way, the theoretical concepts of green bankers’ integration of green investment and financing teams can be summarized, and the logical relationship between them can be explored based on the actual interviews. In addition, through comparing existing theoretical literature, the relationship between different concepts can be identified to ensure, as much as possible, that these concepts can exhibit the characteristics of the cases while having theoretical consistency.

4. Interview Analysis

Based on Anthony Giddens’ classification of rules and resources [4], this study divides commercial bank credit team management rules into codes of signification and normative elements, divides team resources into distributive resources and authoritative resources, and analyzes the close relationship between green investment and financing team management rules constructed by green bankers and the behavioral integration of green investment and financing teams. It was found that there are six effective strategies used by green bankers to build green investment and financing team structure. The following part will introduce the six strategies found in the case study as well as the empirical evidence for the correlation between each strategy and the behavioral integration of green investment and financing teams.

4.1. Guiding Green Investment and Financing Teams to Form a Consensus on Green Finance Strategies

A comparative analysis of the interview cases shows that whether green bankers can guide green investment and financing teams to form a green financial strategic consensus significantly affects the level of behavioral integration of green investment and financing teams. This is the first effective strategy based on the construction of codes of signification. During the analysis process of this strategy, the guidance provided by green bankers to help green investment and financing teams form a strategic consensus is interpreted as follows: green investment and financing teams can understand the instructions from the leaders that credit resources should be directed towards green projects, and potential environmental risks for existing investments need to be identified and avoided. Additionally, green bankers should actively guide the green investment and financing teams’ project investment choices. Conceptually, this strategy can be divided into two dimensions: firstly, green bankers acknowledge green investment and financing as a development trend; and secondly, leaders guide green investment and financing team members to consider environmental risks when selecting projects.

Table 3. Formation of strategic consensus.

Enterprise Code	Banks Characteristic	Position	Interview Data
			Interview Details	Analysis Results
A	State-owned shareholding system	Leaders	It has been our goal to develop steadily and increase the total amount of high-quality deposits and loans.	Building strategic consensus
		Team Members	Products and industry trends are changing rapidly, and now that green finance is in great demand, everyone is competing for customers.	Have strategic consensus
B	State-owned shareholding system	Leaders	As a large bank, we have a great deal of social responsibility, and assisting companies in their green transformation is our current focus.	Building strategic consensus
		Team Members	The clients we serve are becoming more environmentally conscious, and as a financial service provider, we should be ahead of our clients.	Endorsement of strategic consensus
C	National shareholding system	Leaders	The financial industry is a dynamic industry, and greening is our special business and a major trend nowadays, We should either advance or retreat.	Strategic consensus has been integrated into regular operations
		Team Members	The transformation of green finance business helped our bank overcome the most difficult period, and now that others are learning this business, we cannot be left behind.	Engage in strategic consensus practice
D	Private Commercial Banks	Leaders	We spend a large amount of money to encourage our team to develop green finance business through a series of manpower incentives, training, and labor competitions.	Build strategic consensus formation environment
		Team Members	You can hear green finance 20 times in one meeting; even the sweeper’s aunt knows that we are now focusing on green credit.	Constitute a strategic consensus
E	National shareholding system	Leaders	Tasks are issued in accordance with the requirements of the head office; I’m not sure about the specific feedback.	Failure to proactively build strategic consensus
		Team Members	The performance appraisal does add to the green finance account, but at present we’ve just finished one deal; whether we would continue or not depends on the pressure in the future.	Not understanding the meaning of strategic objectives
F	City Commercial Bank	Leaders	I attended a city meeting recently where I heard a lot about carbon finance or something, but I don’t know how we can turn that into intermediate service revenue.	Unclear strategic objectives
		Team Members	We don’t have a product package for green finance currently; let’s take one step at a time.	No recognition of strategic goals and a wait-and-see attitude
G	Rural Commercial Bank	Leaders	Farming loans are green finance, right? But since we haven’t set up any related performance targets, we will not participate in this business.	Strategic goals are not yet clear
		Team Members	We are engaged in agricultural lending, and we don’t know how green finance can be integrated into our business.	No strategic consensus
H	Private Commercial Banks	Leaders	Not quite sure how green finance and our business can be integrated; our business growth is still relatively healthy, and we have no plans to explore new areas.	Strategic development direction is unclear
		Team Members	Our business model is different, as we mainly cooperate with large Internet companies. We operate in a very environmentally friendly way.	More passive team behavior

summarizes how the leaders of various commercial banks guide green investment and financing teams to form a consensus on green finance strategies. Empirical evidence shows that the level of team behavioral integration is higher when green bankers guide green investment and financing teams to form a high level of consensus on green finance strategies.

In banks with high levels of behavioral integration, multiple respondents described the positive effects of forming strategic consensus. Bank A is a state-controlled joint-stock commercial bank with a mature organizational structure, well-qualified business personnel, and a wide range of business coverage. However, it also faces problems such as rigid management at every level of business and a narrowing function in financial services.

The leader of the bank (green banker) is very clear about the development direction of the bank and strictly implements the credit policy of “total quantity control, with support and control” for many high-carbon industries such as steel. He points out that “our bank has green credit customers in many business sectors such as credit cards, personal business, corporate business, institutional business, international business, etc., and operates through our green investment and financing team. So green finance is both a challenge and an opportunity. The demand from customers for green finance can break through the barriers between business departments to form an integrated green financial service platform”.

To guide the green investment and financing team to value green investment and financing, the leader actively introduces and promotes green financial talents to optimize personnel allocation, rewards those departments and credit managers who attach importance to green financial business, and discusses the development of green financial business separately in business meetings. The green banker’s behavior and language constitute a guiding effect that makes the green investment and financing team realize that the green investment and financing behavior needs to be placed in the key position of project inspection. This awareness encourages the green investment and financing team to cooperate and supervise across the management departments and business divisions and to form stronger green investment and financing capabilities.

A credit manager of a large state-owned steel company said, “I have done business with steel companies for more than ten years. In the past, many people envied my position, saying that it was a golden job that pays well consistently. From the balance sheet, the company’s asset-liability ratio has always maintained below 70%, but now I feel that the safety of asset-liability ratio does not mean that the funds we invest in steel production enterprises are absolutely safe. Every time I visit the company, the chimneys there stand for potential environmental risks that can’t be ignored anymore”.

The credit manager not only accepted the green banker’s strategic transformation goal but also demonstrated it in his work, mainly by actively discovering new customers to get rid of the high dependence on steel companies. The green banker commended the credit manager, saying, “Generally speaking, a credit manager managing such a large state-owned enterprise is not willing to spend time contacting small companies downstream of the industrial chain, and spending a lot of time serving these small enterprises will not result in much improvement in performance, but he is happy to contact those small companies with advanced technology. He didn’t have to do these things because it would not affect his assessment and income anyway”.

From the empirical evidence, the green investment and financing team of Bank A has reached a consensus on the transformation of green finance under the influence of the green banker. A risk manager in the green investment and financing team said, “I have worked in the post of risk control for more than a decade, and now is almost the time when the entire credit business is undergoing the most dramatic transformation. However, the internal work cooperation in the bank has become more and more smooth. The amount of green inclusive finance loan applications initiated by the personal business manager with the help of the corporate business manager in one month is more than that in the past year. In turn, personal business managers often have the best customer base for small and microbusiness owners, which is also extremely beneficial for transforming high-quality science and technology enterprises to open basic accounts in our bank to assist the development of corporate business. This kind of corporate-personal business integration and cooperation was almost nonexistent in the past”.

The study also found a negative effect of failing to form a strategic consensus during the interviews. Bank D is a city commercial bank whose leader once held a senior management position at Bank A and then joined Bank D to become its top leader. This banker understands the value and significance of green financial transformation, but the empirical evidence shows that, due to various constraints, he has not put much of the strategy of green finance transformation into action. He said, “Our most important job now is to scale up, which is the core objective clearly stated by the board of directors. Therefore, we do not conduct client screening. We also want to invest in projects such as wind energy, photovoltaics, and batteries, but we do not have clients in this area. Although green investment and financing are strongly promoted by the society, it will take time to verify how much revenue it can bring and how much financial risk it has”. This banker also prefers to implement a relatively conservative strategy in the daily management of the credit team. For example, the authority of employees is clearly divided by the different business departments they are in. Personal business managers are only responsible for the sale of financing products. Personal loan managers are only responsible for traditional personal loans; credit card business managers are responsible for credit loan businesses, and the two are not allowed to overlap. Additionally, the corporate business and institutional business managers work independently and do not contact the credit personnel responsible for personal business and credit card business, which blocks the path of behavioral integration from the management mechanism. The leader’s conservative language and behavior make credit managers unaware of the bank’s strategic direction and unable to form a strategic consensus on green finance transformation. If clients have green financial needs, it is difficult for the green investment and financing team to form behavioral integration. They would think, “I don’t want to get involved in the business that I am not responsible for, or my colleagues will accuse me of stealing their clients. It’s better for me to serve my own clients”.

These case studies show that the level of behavioral integration in green investment and financing teams is related to whether green bankers work hard to achieve a strategic consensus on green finance transformation. Looking back at existing research on the green behavior of employees also shows that in human resource management, making employees aware of the organization’s environmental protection goals and sustainable development goals can improve employees’ green behavior [35]. This finding is consistent with the results of the analysis in this study.

Some previous studies, however, have pointed out that the management team’s strategic consensus has no significant effect on the formation of behavioral integration [36]. Then why is the credit team’s strategic consensus guided by green bankers particularly effective in behavioral integration? First, green finance is a brand-new financial concept, and green investment and financing do not match the traditional bank organizational structure in the operation mechanism of financial products. Thus, it relies more on the integration of team behavior to open up the market. For example, traditional corporate business managers who are mainly responsible for large-scale enterprises do not have access to green inclusive finance clients, while traditional personal business managers are aware of the demand for green inclusive finance loans but do not understand the process of doing corporate credit business. Furthermore, the amount of green inclusive finance loans is small, resulting in low loan performance. There are not enough incentives for either party to actively promote the processing of green inclusive financial loans. In this situation, team consensus is of vital importance to break the deadlock and overcome the obstacles caused by the traditional bank organizational mechanism. Green bankers can perceive the direction of bank business development better than their subordinates [37]. Green bankers guide green investment and financing teams to form a consensus, which can lower the threshold for cooperation among credit team members. Although Bank D’s leaders tend to be conservative in their strategic direction and their professionalism as bankers makes them realize that becoming green bankers and promoting the green transformation of commercial banks is an industry trend, this mindset has not been effectively passed on through daily interaction, awards, and communication between superiors and subordinates [38], and green investment and financing teams still operate within the traditional organizational structure. To sum up, this study proposes Proposition 1:

Hypothesis 1 (H1).

If green bankers guide their green investment and financing teams to form a strategic consensus, the level of behavioral integration of the green investment and financing teams will be high.

4.2. Creating the Awareness and Environment of Exploratory Learning for Green Investment and Financing Teams

Through case comparison, this study found that in commercial banks with better behavioral integration, green bankers are good at improving the exploratory learning ability of green investment and finance teams. This is the second effective strategy found in this study based on the construction of codes of signification. March [39] proposed that learning at the organizational level should be subdivided into exploratory learning and exploitative learning. Exploratory learning refers to breaking away from the current field and focusing on learning new knowledge fields that were not known in the past, while exploitative learning focuses on refining the existing knowledge field and strengthening the ability on a current basis with the aim of improving the exploitation efficiency of existing knowledge. The relevant knowledge and professional skills of green investment and financing belong to an emerging field of knowledge in the financial industry that is different from the existing field of knowledge in terms of risk concepts, product types, and operational procedures. The learning of green investment and financing requires credit managers to have the ability to discover, experiment, take risks, and innovate, which is typical for exploratory learning. Enhancing the ability of exploratory learning includes increasing the credit team’s awareness for exploratory learning and providing an exploratory learning environment.

This study summarizes two typical exploratory learning characteristics of green investment and financing teams of commercial banks, which are used to identify the exploratory learning ability of each interviewee. First, exploratory learning, in which the team collectively participates, can be organized and facilitated. The learning of a single individual in the green investment and financing team is easily constrained by the individual’s own cognitive ability as well as by the knowledge barriers between different positions. Effective exploratory learning needs to include the process of collective learning in order to explain, integrate, and institutionalize the knowledge of green investment and financing [40] and thus constitute the overall behavioral capacity of the green investment and financing team. Second, the green investment and financing knowledge explored and learned should meet the actual needs of the corresponding positions of the green investment and financing team and help members in different positions acquire new knowledge and abilities to meet the needs of behavioral integration within the organization. Additionally, the team members should be able to consider the changes in the investment and financing environment outside of the organization to acquire the ability to examine green investment and financing behaviors from a dynamic development perspective [17], to independently propose a vision, and to maintain the ability to adapt and innovate [41].

Table 4. Exploratory learning of green finance knowledge.

Enterprise Code	Banks Characteristic	Position	Interview Data
			Interview Details	Analysis Results
A	State-owned shareholding system	Leaders	We attach great importance to staff learning, there are bank leaders in charge of training at all levels of the leadership team, and there are several training bases in Harbin, Changchun, and Hong Kong nationwide, as well as our own training centers in each province at the branch level.	Build a learning environment
		Team Members	The atmosphere in the bank attaches great importance to learning, and now almost all new employees have a master’s degree, and I myself am studying for an MBA.	Have a sense of learning
B	State-owned shareholding system	Leaders	Our human resources system has a special bonus point for professional licenses held by employees in the job evaluation, encourages employees to learn professional skills, and provides subsidies for participation in studies.	Raise awareness of learning
		Team Members	We have business learning activities on weekends, and basically every year the bank will also take out one or two weeks for us to attend closed training courses, which are tailored to business needs and are highly targeted and useful.	Have a learning environment
C	National shareholding system	Leaders	From the beginning of the training of new employees, we will be able to assess the learning ability and training results of employees, and those who do not like to learn may not even pass the probationary period.	Raise learning awareness into the organizational structure
		Team Members	Business learning is a regular part of our work, and we design our own courses internally and invite outside experts to speak.	Effective integration into the learning environment
D	Private Commercial Banks	Leaders	We spend a large amount of money to cooperate with associations, unions, and universities to provide training for employees, and we also reimburse some of the cost if employees themselves have obtained the certification.	Create a learning environment and encourage active learning
		Team Members	The leadership attaches great importance to our professional qualifications, many senior certificates have bonuses, which are also very helpful for promotion.	Cognitive learning importance
E	National shareholding system	Leaders	Sorry, I am not responsible for the force and am not clear about the specific situation.	Not involved in employee learning efforts
		Team Members	We have a training mechanism, but we have been to the training center, usually older employees or leaders too.	Not engaged in learning behaviors
F	City Commercial Bank	Leaders	We will invite some training institutions to conduct training; employees have to attend. These sessions will primarily be conducted by university professors. However, I’m not sure who will be responsible for arranging the sessions within human resources.	Not directly involved in employee training
		Team Members	Training is arranged during office hours. Usually, those of us who are engaged in business have no opportunity to participate. It is mainly the staff from administrative departments who attend.	Not integrated into the learning environment
G	Rural Commercial Bank	Leaders	Organizations such as associations sometimes hold training, and we all participate actively.	Not actively constructing the learning environment
		Team Members	We rarely recruit newcomers; we are skilled workers and we do not need to learn anything.	Did not keep learning
H	Private Commercial Banks	Leaders	We are not clear; we do not have many credit staff. Our business is mainly online and processed by computers.	No learning environment
		Team Members	Our business model is not the same; our clients are mainly large Internet companies and we do not have the services that traditional financial institutions have.	Differences in learning orientation

summarizes the empirical evidence and evaluation of each commercial bank interviewed. The analysis shows that teams with good behavioral integration have strong exploratory learning abilities.

In banks with high levels of behavioral integration, multiple respondents described the positive effects of exploratory learning. The leader of Bank B showed great attention to the training of the credit team and attached great importance to the teaching quality of the internal training institutions. Furthermore, he continued to optimize the technological innovation of online training and included online learning in the KPI indicators. Regarding the training of subordinate employees, he said, “I went to Hong Kong to learn financial management experience, and found that they attach great importance to capability assessment and qualification certificates, which we ignore. Their financial management experience is very valuable to us. Now the training fee is a very important part of our labor costs”. The leaders of Bank B also encouraged the members of the credit team to independently learn new knowledge and improve their own capability and competence. According to the case data, all the credit management personnel of Bank B have passed the internal qualification assessment and have obtained professional qualifications that are recognized globally or nationally. More than 60% of the credit personnel under the age of 35 who have not obtained a master’s degree are studying for a relevant part-time master’s degree. The product manager of the corporate business department of Bank C also clearly stated, “I have always loved learning, and I think it is because of my continuous pursuit of new business knowledge that the leaders value me and put me in this position that needs to constantly update knowledge and understand new trends of the industry. I must study harder and stay competitive”. Through various measures, green bankers encourage green investment and financing teams to conduct exploratory learning, and such learning provides green finance knowledge and green investment and financing skills required for team integration.

The study also found a negative effect of low levels of behavioral integration; in these cases, bankers were significantly insufficient in promoting and supervising exploratory learning for green investment and financing teams. The leader and the credit team members of Bank E are usually busy with routine business. Due to limited staffing, the team struggles to keep up with routine business operations, leaving little time to update new knowledge. Their typical attitude towards learning about green investment and financing is: “in our current situation, it is impossible to read a book—we just don’t have the time. Additionally, it is not necessary in business, unless the clients that we serve have a need of green loans. Otherwise, it is useless to learn”. The exploratory learning awareness of these green investment and financing teams has not been stimulated, and they do not have an internal environment for continuous learning. The entire team is suffocated by heavy daily work and cannot afford time and money to learn green investment and financing knowledge. Therefore, their team’s behavioral integration is ineffective. Based on the above analysis, this study proposes Proposition 2:

Hypothesis 2 (H2).

If green bankers attach importance to the green investment and financing teams’ learning of new knowledge and make efforts to encourage them to conduct exploratory learning, the level of behavioral integration of green investment and financing teams will be high.

4.3. Cultivating Trust within Green Investment and Financing Teams

The interview analysis also shows that a trust atmosphere created by green bankers within green investment and financing teams helps behavioral integration. This is the third effective strategy found in this study based on the construction of codes of signification. This study defines the trust atmosphere within green investment and financing teams at two levels: at the vertical level, green bankers have initial interpersonal trust in their subordinate credit managers; at the horizontal level, green bankers actively create a working atmosphere of mutual trust and cooperation between credit managers. This coincides with the existing research on teamwork, which generally holds that the establishment of a working atmosphere of mutual trust within the team is a key factor for the effective exchange of information within the team and constitutes collective cooperation [42]. In this study, green bankers’ initial trust in green investment and financing teams refers to a psychological state in which green bankers express a friendly attitude at the beginning of contact with their subordinate credit teams, expressing confidence and willingness to rely on the green investment and financing teams. The data show (see

Table 5. Building trust in the team.

Enterprise Code	Banks Characteristic	Position	Interview Data
			Interview Details	Analysis Results
A	State-owned shareholding system	Leaders	I was not the leader of the business line before I was in charge of the green finance business; I was in charge of the corporate culture. I should say that the staff handling the business is more familiar with the specific business than I am, and I trust the ability of the team, not relying on personal experience.	Full trust in subordinates
		Team Members	We strictly divide our work according to job responsibilities and carry the duties and tasks of each position; each person is a module in our business process, and as long as everyone does their job well, things will run smoothly.	Full trust in the team
B	State-owned shareholding system	Leaders	Green credit is a highly specialized job, and our staff are experts in the industry and know what they are doing.	Full trust in the team
		Team Members	Iron rules, iron abacus, iron books. As a large state-owned bank, we control risks and allocate resources for major investments. Everyone is very serious and professional.	Full trust in the team
C	National shareholding system	Leaders	Although our green finance business is a new department, these people have been my sons and daughters for many years, and we are one of the best teams in the industry.	Long-term teamwork and trust
		Team Members	Our team has taken on many tasks; the financial market is changing, but the team’s ability to take on tasks and overcome difficulties will not change.	The team has accumulated sufficient mutual understanding over a long period of time
D	Private Commercial Banks	Leaders	This is a newly formed team that has taken on a lot of internal talent to respond to business needs, and they are very capable.	Trusting subordinates
		Team Members	Most of the colleagues are highly educated and highly paid, so I believe we are all very capable of working.	The team is not familiar with each other, but there is a basic mutual trust
E	National shareholding system	Leaders	Sorry, I’m not responsible for the handling of specific business.	Lack of communication with employees at the business level
		Team Members	If customers have a need, we will recommend the corresponding position. I’m not really sure what happens next.	Lack of partnership and little internal communication
F	City Commercial Bank	Leaders	Our personnel are currently facing a serious generational gap. With the loss of a number of key personnel, there are certain responsibilities that I have to personally take on, as it would be very difficult otherwise.	Lack of trust in team capabilities
		Team Members	Leaders are older and highly educated, but they are not very willing to accept the advice of our ordinary undergraduates. They’re more likely to point out flaws than offer praise.	Lack of cooperation with each other
G	Rural Commercial Bank	Leaders	Some employees of the team do have a bad attitude, and there is nothing that can be done about it; it is the historical legacy	Distrust of employee’s ability to work
		Team Members	If you do not want to do, what is the point of doing it? Subordinates are held responsible for mistakes, while credit for success always goes to the leadership.	Team lacks mutuality and no motivation to work
H	Private Commercial Banks	Leaders	Not sure about this; we are an online bank, and we only have programmers.	No understanding of team operations
		Team Members	A lot of our work is outsourced; if there are problems, let the outsourced team change.	No team with each other

) that banks with a high degree of credit team behavioral integration show stronger mutual trust in both the vertical superior-subordinate relationship and the horizontal colleague relationship.

In banks with high levels of behavioral integration, multiple respondents described the positive effects of building trust in the team. The leader of Bank B was not in charge of the credit business before but oversaw other departments, such as corporate culture. After being transferred to be the head of the credit business, the leader showed sufficient trust in the green investment and financing team. He said, “The members of my subordinate team and I are all very good friends, and we have an open channel of communication. We chat even if there is no work contact. The whole team is very cohesive and everyone works hard for the same goal”. When discussing the risks that such trust may bring, he re-emphasized, “Although the outside world thinks we are a group of scheming moneylenders, in fact, the working atmosphere of state-owned banks is very simple. No one will deliberately undermine others. If you undermine me, you undermine the whole team, and that is not good for you personally. I am not originally from the department of credit business, so I am more willing to learn business experience from them, and they are more willing to work with me to do a good job in business instead of deceiving and undermining each other”.

A risk control manager in Bank B’s credit team confirms the role of green bankers’ trust. He said, “I don’t need to think too much when communicating with the leader. He believes that we are professional bank staff who will spare no effort to improve operating efficiency and profitability, and that the choices we make are reasonable plans after long deliberation. My leader is right when he said that no one could beat us unless we beat ourselves”. This atmosphere of vertical trust between superiors and subordinates also promotes cooperation among green investment and financing team members for common goals, and healthy team growth further promotes horizontal collective trust. The major reason is that inherent pressure on team members to “live up to the leader’s trust”. For example, the manager in charge of the corporate business of Bank B said, “The leader trusts us very much and listens to our suggestions. He does not give confusing instructions, or sets unreasonable tasks. Therefore, the performance tasks that we promise to complete must not be compromised, because we must not only be responsible for our own work, but also live up to the leader’s support”. This friendly working atmosphere expands the overall benefits of the team, thereby ensuring the growth of benefits for team members along with the growth of the team’s income, which ultimately promotes more trust and cooperation among team members. These analysis results show the importance of mutual trust between green banks and their green investment and financing teams.

At the same time, in contrast to these positive cases, in green investment and financing teams with a low degree of behavioral integration, team members lack trust and mutual disapproval; colleagues cannot form horizontal green credit business information exchanges; and superiors and subordinates cannot form effective job function complementarity. Bank F is a typical example. The leader and the credit business team do not trust each other. General Manager Liu (pseudonym), head of the credit team, recruited new business managers into the team, bringing in high-quality green financial clients, which could divert the credit resources originally allocated to the traditional real estate industry to invest in emerging green investment and financing projects such as green medium-term notes. However, the leader’s distrust of the subordinate team led to low efficiency in information communication with the subordinate team. Faced with the business approval application of the credit team, the leader could not accurately assess the potential financial risks of the green investment and financing opportunities provided by the subordinate team with limited information. The leader’s natural aversion to risk led him to reject the application for green investment and financing projects initiated by the green financial business transformation that his subordinate team was trying to promote. The lack of recognition for the credit team’s hard work fuels distrust of superior leadership and disunity within the team. The aforementioned General Manager Liu said: “I have done a lot of work to successfully recruit team members who can discover and maintain green financial clients. My superior, who obtained a Ph.D. more than 20 years ago, blindly believes he is better than anyone in finance. It’s okay for him to brag in internal meetings. But he would give random orders about the green investment and financing projects that we took pains to negotiate. In the end, the clients were offended, and the newly recruited green finance experts are also disgruntled. It’s hard for us to do our jobs well in this environment”.

Existing research literature on leadership has indicated that trust helps team communication [43]. However, by analyzing multiple cases, this study has discovered different evidence from previous studies on how to build trust within commercial bank credit teams. Some previous studies suggest that a leader’s competence, goodwill, and integrity [44] are the main factors in gaining trust. Other studies have pointed out that factors such as individual emotions, intelligence, and team-shared values can affect the formation of trust [45]. These studies have conducted a lot of research on the attributes of a trusted person. The cases of the credit teams of commercial banks show that the trust of the credit teams is initiated by the leaders. In teams with a high degree of behavioral integration, green bankers believe that the members of the subordinate credit teams are qualified and trustworthy, and thus green investment and financing business can be conducted through value shaping and guidance [46]. On the other hand, if leaders of green credit businesses have difficulty trusting their subordinates, the superior-subordinate relationship will deteriorate because the leaders fear their authority will be violated by their subordinates’ excellent performance [47]. This can be detrimental to the integration of team behavior. This study thus puts forward Proposition 3:

Hypothesis 3 (H3).

If green bankers can maintain mutual trust between staff in various positions that can ensure cross-functional cooperation, the level of behavioral integration of the green investment and financing teams will be high.

4.4. Granting Structural Power to Competent Green Investment and Financing Team Members

This study has discovered that structural power granted by green bankers to competent credit team members has a positive impact on behavioral integration. This is the first effective strategy found by this study based on the allocation of authoritative resources. Existing research on leader empowerment classifies power distribution into structural empowerment and psychological empowerment. Structural empowerment refers to the flow and sharing of power at the organizational level, and psychological empowerment refers to the enhancement of rights perceived by organizational members at the psychological level. The empowerment identified through the interviews in this study is structural empowerment. Specifically, granting structural power to competent green investment and financing team members means that green bankers will first select competent green investment and financing team members and then grant them powers that match their competence. This strategy has two sub-dimensions: one is that green investment and financing team members are competent in green investment and financing-related tasks, and the other is that green bankers are willing to grant structural powers to credit managers.

Table 6. Structural empowerment based on green investment and financing competence.

Enterprise Code	Banks Characteristic	Position	Interview Data
			Interview Details	Analysis Results
A	State-owned shareholding system	Leaders	In addition to not letting them take my seal, I am willing to provide support in any way I can for the smooth progress of the business.	Happy to delegate authority
		Team Members	Leaders give us a lot of freedom; some leaders regard rights as treasures, and he directly authorizes us.	Access to structural rights
B	State-owned shareholding system	Leaders	The team leader has the right to distribute the team’s income, and I will not interfere in principle.	Allocation of structural rights
		Team Members	The insiders of the team are more aware of who has made greater contributions to the team than outsiders, and independent income distribution rights are conducive to stimulating work motivation.	Have partial structural rights
C	National shareholding system	Leaders	It’s hard for me to understand the actual needs of the team, and now that there is a shortage of green finance talents, I basically leave the personnel recruitment to the team leaders to make their own decisions.	Commitment to structural rights
		Team Members	One of the big reasons I came to this bank was the leadership’s promise of independent personnel authority, which made the job flexible.	Access to structural rights
D	Private Commercial Banks	Leaders	I have always stressed the importance of team marketing, key customers, and key projects. I often work with them to market, and I strive to discuss one thing.	Willingness to exercise structural rights in accordance with the needs of subordinates
		Team Members	The leaders are very supportive of the marketing work. If we have any needs the leaders can help solve, they will fight for us.	Can initiate the use of some structural rights
E	National shareholding system	Leaders	Job responsibilities and authority are clearly defined; according to the rules of the system, we are not the kind of small workshop that can do as you wish.	Strictly control the exercise of structural rights
		Team Members	We work by the book, which of course you can interpret as our strict operating principles of compliance or as a lack of flexibility.	No structural rights
F	City Commercial Bank	Leaders	It is very dangerous for business people to have additional rights. The organizational structure provides for job functions and cannot be changed at will.	Strictly control the exercise of structural rights
		Team Members	Administrative personnel only care about the completion of the performance, not how difficult it is.	No structural rights
G	Rural Commercial Bank	Leaders	Rather than being leaders, I prefer to say we serve, understanding what business people need and then putting them in place.	Proactively understand the needs of subordinates for structural rights
		Team Members	We can talk to our leader about any needs we encounter. He used to be a grassroots employee and can understand our difficulties.	Ability to present the need for the exercise of structural rights
H	Private Commercial Banks	Leaders	I don’t have any rights; the chairman has the right to make decisions.	Reluctance to delegate authority
		Team Members	We are all contract workers. When the contract expires, I don’t know if there will be a new contract.	No structural rights

presents evidence that green bankers grant structural power to competent green investment and financing team members.

In banks with high levels of behavioral integration, multiple respondents described the positive effects of structural empowerment based on green investment and financing competence. For example, the leader of Bank C interviewed and recruited the manager of the green investment and financing department and made it clear that one of the manager’s key tasks was to increase the proportion of green loans at the bank. The leader of Bank C said, “She started doing related business when people in the industry had never heard of green finance, and is one of the few professionals nationwide to be so familiar with green investment and financing products. She is not only well-qualified for her own job, but also experienced in talent management since she used to oversee human resource management in a sub-branch. She can find qualified personnel for our team, and use suitable people to carry out various aspects of green finance business. Empowering her to manage human resource obviously improves the efficiency of the team”. The leader of Bank C has recognized the subordinate’s competence and empowered her to manage human resources. The empowerment has stimulated the subordinate’s enthusiasm and helped Bank C build a team of highly qualified green credit professionals.

Banks with poor behavioral integration tend to show the opposite pattern. For example, the leader of Bank F also recruited the manager of the green investment and financing department because he was good at green investment and financing. The credit manager of Bank F described the recruited manager in this way: “The newly-appointed department manager obtained a Ph.D. in a prestigious university and used to be a leader in a government regulatory agency. He speaks logically and is proficient in green finance-related businesses”. During the interview, the research team learned that the leader of Bank F once promised the manager independent personnel rights and a high performance-related bonus to build a green investment and financing team. However, due to the leader’s fear of authority being violated and subsequent hostility after the empowerment [48], the effects of empowerment are not successful. This department manager said, “On the surface, I have the personnel rights in my department. The people recruited by me have different salary and benefit packages from those hired by the banking corporation. But once liquidity crunch hits the whole corporation, my team will suffer from income cut because we have higher performance-related salary advance. Sometimes there is a big gap between the actual income and the promised amount. The people I brought here are all my old colleagues and friends who have followed me for many years. It embarrasses me to see them suffer from income loss”. What’s more, the original promise of business independence is also difficult to fulfill. The manager added, “Marketing is to move forward without turning back. The wind, light and electricity projects are now subject to state subsidies, with small risks and high returns. Everyone is rushing in, but my team’s marketing expenses must be approved first. We were owed more than one million for travel expenses such as plane and train tickets, and we couldn’t get reimbursed in three months. In the end, our small team became a lone army fighting in a big war, and we couldn’t win against the big teams of other banks. Now the green projects are the investment trend, and we cannot get a piece”.

On the other hand, previous research has found that “equality of status” among team members is conducive to promoting the integration of team behavior [49]. However, research on the behavioral integration of commercial banks has reached a different conclusion. This study has found that when green bankers empower those qualified green investment and financing team members, they can enhance the work capacity of the credit team and make the credit business more inclined to green investment and financing. An important reason is that the operation mode of commercial banks is different from that of the research objects in previous research on the influence of leadership empowerment. The investment and financing business in commercial banks is managed by a small team with a typical flat structure, where the leader usually enjoys much administrative power. Faced with traditional investment and financing business, traditional bankers can be competent and use their power effectively. In this situation, the “equality of status” in the subordinate team can indeed enhance the team atmosphere and promote team cooperation [50]. As an emerging form, green finance is an innovative model in the process of strategic transformation of the banking industry, and it is difficult for green bankers to have all the experience and knowledge to match their power. Therefore, empowering competent staff is conducive to the smooth progress of green investment and financing business. As a result, the empowering behavior of green bankers tends to improve the behavioral integration of subordinate green investment and financing teams. Some previous studies of corporate strategic mutations have also proposed that teams with organizational autonomy and shared management experience can promote corporate strategic adjustment [51]. The findings coincide with the analysis results in this study. Based on the above analysis, this study puts forward Proposition 4:

Hypothesis 4 (H4).

If green bankers select competent green investment and financing team members and grant them structural power, the level of behavioral integration of green investment and financing teams will be high.

4.5. Designing and Implementing a Fair “Results-Oriented” Remuneration System

The data in this study shows that a fair “results-oriented” remuneration system within commercial banks is conducive to the behavioral integration of green investment and financing teams. This is the second effective strategy found by this study based on the allocation of authoritative resources. The fairness here means that the members of the green investment and financing team feel that their income fairly matches their contributions and that their salary and benefit package are relatively fair when compared with colleagues. The “results-oriented” remuneration system refers to the employee remuneration system based on business results related to green investment and financing, which provides impetus for the team’s behavioral integration.

Table 7. A “results-oriented” remuneration system based on fairness.

Enterprise Code	Banks Characteristic	Position	Interview Data
			Interview Details	Analysis Results
A	State-owned shareholding system	Leaders	We have long since abandoned the pot-luck pay system, more work, more pay, and the model of work-based distribution has been fully promoted for many years.	Emphasis on fairness of results-based compensation system
		Team Members	How much performance is created is directly related to the individual’s salary.	Recognition of the fairness and results orientation of the compensation system
B	State-owned shareholding system	Leaders	Each quarterly compensation plan is announced in advance, and performance income is issued according to the established performance task completion and assessment rules.	Clarify that the development of the compensation system is based on performance tasks
		Team Members	We carefully study each quarter’s task plan and use the rules for performance income distribution as an important guide for our work.	Effective implementation of results-oriented compensation system objectives
C	National shareholding system	Leaders	We have a complete set of KPIs that clearly defines the relationship between each business and revenue.	Designing a clear results- oriented compensation system
		Team Members	The focus of work will change according to the KPI adjustment. Now that the KPI of green credit has been adjusted upward, the focus of work will naturally be tilted.	Effective integration into the compensation system and recognition of its fairness
D	Private Commercial Banks	Leaders	We use an annual salary system, but it’s just basic income. Performance pay mainly depends on business development.	Transparent compensation system to guarantee basic fairness
		Team Members	We don’t deduct our base annual salary too much because of performance, which makes me feel more secure, but I can also recognize that people who do well in business earn much more than me.	Recognition of the fairness of the compensation system
E	National shareholding system	Leaders	I’m sorry, I’m not in charge of salary management; I don’t know the salary system.	Not involved in compensation system construction
		Team Members	I don’t really know how our salary is calculated. If I calculate it according to the standard of other banks, my income is about 20 times more than now.	Unclear compensation system
F	City Commercial Bank	Leaders	Our income system is an annual salary plus business commission, but there is no business commission for management positions; the income is basically fixed.	No emphasis on results orientation
		Team Members	We do whatever the leader asks us to do. The salary is also decided by the leader, and there is no public standard.	Compensation system is not transparent
G	Rural Commercial Bank	Leaders	My job is to do a good job in financial services for farmers; I don’t care about the income.	Failure to build a systematic compensation system
		Team Members	We just get a fixed salary plus a year-end bonus, and the year-end bonus depends on the opinions of the board of directors.	Non-transparent compensation system
H	Private Commercial Banks	Leaders	I don’t know the specifics; we are not allowed to discuss income.	Compensation system is not disclosed
		Team Members	We don’t allow discussions about income, and people have been fired for inquiring about other people’s income.	Lack of fairness in the compensation system

summarizes the empirical evidence of the remuneration system of the interviewed commercial banks. The case analysis shows that in commercial banks with better behavioral integration, there is a relatively transparent and fair mechanism to reward green investment and finance business performance.

In banks with high levels of behavioral integration, multiple respondents described the positive effects of the “results-oriented” remuneration system based on fairness. For example, the leader of Bank A has clearly set up a performance-based salary system with a balance of rights and responsibilities. All the employees of Bank A recognize that their salary is directly related to their work difficulty and workload and accept that employees of the same rank but in different positions receive much different salaries. This remuneration system set up by the leader of Bank A is “results-oriented”. Although there are huge differences in salaries between employees in different positions, it has not caused dissatisfaction among employees because the disparity in salary is based on fair and remuneration rules. An auditor of Bank A said, “Are you asking me whether I am disgruntled when I know that the loan-lending staff are better paid than me? In fact, there is nothing to be disgruntled about. Our work is not the same. Auditing is an internal job, which will not cause problems and there will always be good results if you do it well. However, those who deal with green loans are faced with the risk of no results if they don’t do it well. And when something goes with the loans, they will take the risk of being relieved of the post. So the nature of the work is different”. Obviously, in a fair environment, one’s work can be cashed into material rewards through performance-related pay, which can greatly stimulate the enthusiasm of green investment and financing team members and promote the integration of team behavior. This finding coincides with previous research. For example, Carpenter et al. [52] found that employee remuneration is positively related to corporate performance when shareholders’ interests, political and strategic background, and internal power distribution are all considered in the remuneration system. Green investment and financing business in commercial banks is being studied here for shareholder interest and political and strategic background in the process of financial industry transformation.

By contrast, the remuneration system set by the leaders of some commercial banks is either not “results-oriented” or not fair enough. A large part of the income of employees in Bank E comes from a year-end bonus, but the size of the bonus is subject to many factors, such as the overall performance of the superior group company, the overall risk control within the bank, and the external environment of the financial market, which are not directly related to employees’ work performance. At the same time, the leaders themselves have reserved a lot of rights to distribute bonuses. An employee said, “Performance-related pay should certainly be based on personal performance, but the ‘future leaders’ favored by top officials are paid more than us, and young people’s income is indeed less than some old staff who are about to retire”. Such an unfair or random income distribution mechanism has made team members gradually shift their focus from business results to personal relationships with superiors. The employee added, “Doing your job well and serving your clients well is not as good as getting deliveries and afternoon tea for your superiors every day”.

This study also finds that green investment and financing teams with a high degree of behavioral integration do not pay attention to the remuneration systems of peer institutions. On the contrary, they focus more on whether the distribution of pay and rights is fair. This finding is consistent with the research of Sanchez-Marin et al. [53]. There have also been studies suggesting that narrowing the pay gap can promote team unity [54], but the subjects of these studies tend to have smaller differences in the difficulty and nature of work in different positions than those in commercial banks. In that case, a smaller pay gap embodies the fairness of the remuneration system. As a new type of financial business, green investment and financing business is difficult to develop and has high uncertainty about capital risks, which poses higher performance challenges to the staff. Only a big disparity can reflect the fairness of the remuneration system. Previous research has also verified that performance pressure can be a double-edged sword [55]. A fair and reasonable remuneration system provides team members with the standard and motivation of “job challenge”, and, in the cases of this study, becomes an effective means to adjust performance pressure to a positive effect, thereby enhancing the behavioral integration of green investment and financing teams. Based on the above analysis, this study puts forward Proposition 5:

Hypothesis 5 (H5).

If green bankers can design and implement a fair “results-oriented” remuneration system, the level of behavioral integration of green investment and financing teams will be high.

4.6. Setting Clear Job Responsibilities for Green Investment and Financing Team Members

Green bankers who set clear job responsibilities for their green investment and financing team members can promote behavioral integration within the team. This is an effective strategy found in this study based on normative elements. Clear job responsibilities include two parts. The first is to specify what tasks related to green investment and financing should be completed by each position in the green investment and financing team; the second is to specify what performance indicators related to green investment and financing should be achieved by each individual in the team. The case analysis data shows (see

Table 8. Clear and effective implementation of post rights and responsibilities.

Enterprise Code	Banks Characteristic	Position	Interview Data
			Interview Details	Analysis Results
A	State-owned shareholding system	Leaders	We have an operating system that includes eight positions, and the work authority of each position is controlled by a digital system.	Complete digitalization and standardization of job authority and responsibility control
		Team Members	The president attaches great importance to compliance, and fingerprint recognition is required to log in to the business system, and there are cameras recording the whole process.	Strictly protect the independence of individual job authority
B	State-owned shareholding system	Leaders	We adopt a separate office model so that employees in the front, middle, and back offices cannot contact and communicate with each other at all, thus ensuring the independence of job responsibilities.	Systematic setting of job authority and responsibility protection mechanism
		Team Members	Usually do not even contact other business link colleagues; each is doing their own work, so naturally there is no mutual intervention.	Independence in the execution of job duties
C	National shareholding system	Leaders	From the beginning of new employee training, we constantly emphasize the importance of business compliance to our employees, and superiors can report directly if they interfere with business processing.	Strictly limit cross-post interventions
		Team Members	We emphasize the authority to say no to higher-level positions, and each person is responsible for their own business compliance.	Strict maintenance of job responsibilities
D	Private Commercial Banks	Leaders	Our business process is very strict, and we are very disgusted with human intervention in the process.	Create a working atmosphere with clear lines of authority and responsibility
		Team Members	I’ve never heard of anyone interfering with the authority of the post; we don’t do that kind of bureaucracy.	Recognize a work environment with clear lines of authority and responsibility
E	National shareholding system	Leaders	I am only in charge of administrative management; I don’t know much about these specific matters.	Not involved in job responsibility setting
		Team Members	We’re a huge company with a long history, and it’s hard to really guarantee job independence.	Some degree of external interference in the execution of job authority and responsibility
F	City Commercial Bank	Leaders	I am not quite sure about the specific process of business handling.	No clear job responsibilities set
		Team Members	A lot of work needs to be done, all specific to the individual, which will lead to low efficiency.	No clear allocation of job responsibilities
G	Rural Commercial Bank	Leaders	This needs to be consulted with the human resources department; I don’t know the job setting.	Not involved in the construction of job responsibilities
		Team Members	We rarely recruit newcomers; we are skilled workers, and there is a need to be multi-faceted.	No job responsibilities
H	Private Commercial Banks	Leaders	We are almost all online businesses and don’t need those jobs in traditional banks.	Not understanding the content of the credit team job responsibilities
		Team Members	Our business is handled online without human intervention.	Some positions are omitted through digital technology

) that a team with a high degree of behavioral integration has a clear division of labor and clear job responsibilities for its members.

In banks with high levels of behavioral integration, multiple respondents described the positive effects of clear and effective implementation of post rights and responsibilities. For example, the leader of Bank A pays special attention to the description of employees’ job responsibilities. He said, “The internal management system we use now has a clear division of the authority for all positions. Everyone must enter their employee number and password to access the corresponding management system, and the authority of different levels and positions are clearly divided by the system. In internal management, the punishment for using others’ system authority is very severe, and the abuse of authority is strictly prohibited”. Similarly, the description of responsibilities for different positions in the green investment and financing team of Bank B is also very clear. An interviewee in the approval position said: “The approver has a high degree of independence in the bank, and the approval of green investment and financing business strictly abides by the internal risk control protocol. No matter how big the leader is, he may not interfere with the work of the approver, let alone overstep it”. The team also has high execution efficiency in terms of post coordination. The interviewee added, “All green investment and financing businesses are operated through a digital management system, be it pre-loan, in-loan, post-loan, application, reviewing, or lending. What everyone needs to do is clearly stipulated, and wherever the work is advanced, there will be people in relevant positions to take care of it. The system will also detect if the work is being processed in time, and will remind and punish the corresponding positions that are behind schedule. The digital financial management system has run through the entire flow of business, ensuring that all work progresses according to the established trajectory”.

At the same time, some cases show what can happen when post rights and responsibilities are unclear. The leaders of Bank E have very high independent decision-making power over green investment and financing business. Staff members in marketing positions also have great power in the process of handling green investment and financing business, and risk review can be conducted through “negotiation”. A member of the green investment and financing team said, “I have also worked in a state-owned bank, where the front, middle and back offices of the investment and financing business are independent, and each process works according to its own principles. But the risk control here is more flexible, and certain people have much authority in many aspects. Sometimes the pressure of tasks and the will of the board of directors do affect some things. I cannot say which system is better. Maybe they both work in their own way”. Obviously, Bank E does not attach importance to clearly clarifying the responsibilities for different positions in the organizational structure. The superior leaders and key position staff have strong intervention power, while the intervened staff tend to feel that their knowledge, information, and professionalism in their business areas are not valued. and they are strong. The staff in key positions do not recognize the value of the staff in supporting positions, which leads to confusion in the handover of teamwork and makes it difficult to form a standardized behavioral integration. Previous research also supports the results of this study. Carmeli [7] pointed out that only a team with a clear division of labor and clear responsibilities can ensure that team members perform their duties and exert their talent. Otherwise, it is easy to cause problems by blaming each other and leading to internal disputes. Itoh [56] studied the impact of job design on cooperation and found that team members with complementary tasks were more likely to help each other. It supported the proposition that green investment and financing teams need to have clear job responsibilities. Based on the analysis above, this study puts forward Proposition 6:

Hypothesis 6 (H6).

If green bankers set clear job responsibilities for their green investment and financing team members, the level of behavioral integration of the team will be high.

By integrating all six propositions, a theoretical model can be constructed, as shown in Figure 2.

5. Conclusions and Implications

5.1. Conclusions

This study has found that green bankers can promote behavioral integration of green investment and financing teams by building a good team structure. Employing structuration theory to conduct exploratory case analysis, this study has analyzed the operation process of the green investment and financing teams in commercial banks when handling the emerging green investment and financing business and explained the “team process” of promoting green investment and financing business in commercial banks, making it no longer a complete “black box”. Based on the existing research on leadership theory, this study has considered the particularities of commercial bank management and green investment and financing business and used empirical evidence to explain how to build a green investment and financing team structure to promote behavioral integration from a theoretical perspective.

This study is different from previous studies that have analyzed the impact on the management team from the perspectives of leaders’ personality traits, knowledge structure, and leadership styles in that we attach more importance to the leaders’ specific measures of designing the team management system. It has been found that the good structure of the investment and financing teams built by green bankers has important impacts on the behavior of team members. This impact makes the green investment and financing teams in commercial banks more willing to promote the transformation of green finance and to implement more green investment and financing behaviors, thereby pushing the multi-level greening of commercial banks’ asset structure allocation and risk management models. Specifically, this study proposes that green bankers need to construct the team structure by adopting the following six strategies: Green bankers need to achieve consensus on green finance strategy within the team to ensure that investment and financing team members and green bankers have the same green vision; provide more resources to assist members of the green investment and financing team to learn knowledge, set up a better reward system to encourage employees to learn green finance knowledge, and create an external environment to facilitate exploratory learning; build and maintain trust within the organization; design a fair “results-oriented” remuneration system according to the actual difficulties of green investment and financing business, in addition to the usual commercial bank compensation model; grant team members some of their own management rights, such as human resources management rights and salary distribution rights; and set an operating mechanism with a clear division of power and responsibilities. In this way, green bankers can promote behavioral integration of their green investment and financing teams and transform their green visions into practices for greening commercial banks.

5.2. Implications

First, it is necessary to set up a scientific evaluation system for the management achievements of the commercial bank leaders. The salary system for commercial bank leaders is often divided into two parts. One is the performance-based salary paid according to the specific performance of the commercial bank. This part can be quantified with specific performance and is generally regarded as a variable wage to be paid after the evaluation of the leader’s performance. The second is related to the leader’s management performance. This part of the salary is paid for the leader’s work in commercial bank management. Since the management work is difficult to quantify, this part is generally paid as part of the bank leader’s fixed annual salary, which will only be deducted when there are major work mistakes. Using the results of this study on deconstructing the “team process” of commercial banks, an assessment standard can be formulated to quantify leaders’ management performance. This can prevent leaders’ inaction in daily management work and can also provide monitoring indicators for supervisors to prevent managers from working for self-interested short-term performance improvement at the cost of breaching the bank’s management system.

Second, it is necessary to enhance the capacity of educational institutions to cultivate green financial talent. The study has found that the green investment and financing teams in commercial banks often need to learn a lot of green financial knowledge in order to adapt to the needs of green investment and financing business, which reflects the lack of green financial talent in financial corporations. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance the capacity of educational institutions to cultivate green financial talent, and it can be implemented at two levels. One is to strengthen the training capacity of higher education institutions, relying on colleges and universities to develop courses and offer majors in green finance to educate large-scale college graduates to cater for the needs of the green finance market. The other is to strengthen the training capacity at the social education level. At present, the social training of green financial talent mainly relies on the internal training capabilities of large financial institutions. Giant financial institutions such as state-controlled joint-stock commercial banks have sufficient human resources, facilities, and capital for internal training. However, small and medium-sized financial institutions do not have equal internal training capabilities, so it is difficult to transform their own traditional financial staff into green financial staff. They need help from social education to cultivate green financial talent for them.

The third point is to strengthen the application scope of the digital management system in the internal management of commercial banks. This study has found that digital financial technology can effectively improve the operational efficiency of traditional banks in various business processes such as seal management, message transmission, and material delivery through the modular setting of system functions. Digital financial technology can also increase the operating cost of cross-post manual intervention. Relying on the closedness, encryption, and standardization of digital technology, it can reduce the consumption of human resources, improve the standardization of business processing, and set up a rigid barrier for post authority differences. Digital technology can also enhance behavioral monitoring capabilities and provide evidence of risk monitoring for post-event interventions.