2.2.2. Moderation Effect of Media Attention

Media attention refers to the extent to which media organizations (major Internet media) pay attention to the business strategy behavior of a specific object such as the listed companies in this study [41,42], "usually gauged by the sheer volume of stories or space dedicated to topics in newspapers, television news and so on". Media attention is an essential external governance factor that influences the role of executives with an environmental protection background. The media is the information vehicle or form of communication that achieves a communication purpose, and it drives the progress of an event through attention and publicity coverage [43]. The media acts as both a bystander and a facilitator of the process in the marketplace [44,45]. This study argues that the media feeds the internal information of listed companies into the capital market, and stakeholders identify and analyze the information reported by the media, forming external supervision and legitimacy pressure, thus influencing the strategic decisions of executives with the environmental protection background on green innovation.

Media attention can enhance the relationship between executives' environmental protection backgrounds and green innovation. First, the higher the level of media attention, the greater the pressure executives receive from external stakeholders to monitor them. It has been shown that high levels of media coverage may prompt firms to take risky and exploratory actions. For example, Chatterjee and Hambrick (2011) [46] found that media attention encourages managers and thus triggers risk-taking behavior. Firms will passively disclose environmental information and improve its quality to more effectively assess executives' environmental protection behavior, i.e., media attention imposes implicit constraints on executives with environmental protection backgrounds. For a corporate to maintain its reputation, maintain market share, and avoid being eliminated from the market, media reinforces executives' awareness of being influenced by their environmental protection backgrounds and enhances their willingness to take risks, thus contributing to green innovation.

Second, the media has an impact on the reputation of executives. Media attention can change corporate strategic behavior by influencing executives' reputations. Executives can obtain external resource support needed for strategic development by receiving social recognition [19]. The most important matter is gaining social recognition, and the media plays a crucial role by influencing public opinion through its coverage of events and personalities. For example, the social resources generated by the executive's idiosyncratic career experience element will be an influencing factor in strategic decisions [47]. Media coverage of green innovation strategies of executives with environmental protection backgrounds will send signals of positive corporate development to external stakeholders, which in turn will generate various resources needed for corporate development and to promote green innovation. The reputation effect of the media will enhance the company's ability to raise funds, ensure sustainable investment in green innovation, address executives' concerns about the development of green innovation, and give full play to the role of executives with environmental protection backgrounds in strategic decision-making [48]. In addition, executives with environmental protection backgrounds will view media attention as a market-oriented signal from the perspective of strategic legitimacy, and tap into the real needs of multiple stakeholders to promote green innovation [49]. This study argues that media attention will enhance the legitimacy pressure faced by companies through monitoring and reputation influences, and increase stakeholders' attention to green innovation, thus strengthening the positive relationship between executives' environmental protection background and green innovation. Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed:

**Hypothesis 2.** *Media attention positively moderates the relationship between the executive's environmental protection background and green innovation.*
