Search Results (111)

Food waste management represents an important economic and environmental challenge for the hospitality sector on a global level, and especially for markets that are still developing, such as Serbia. This exploratory qualitative pilot study supported by descriptive statistics based on expert interviews investigates management perceptions of food waste in Belgrade’s hotels, analyzing the gap between sustainability food waste awareness and operational implementation within a transitional economy. An exploratory pilot study was conducted using a purposive sample of nine general managers from upscale hotels. Interviews with general managers were conducted in person and data was collected via a structured questionnaire based on a five-point Likert scale. The results suggest that general managers perceive food waste reduction primarily as a cost-saving measure rather than a strategic driver of profitability. Using Upper Echelons Theory (UET), this research provides insights into how management-level cognition shapes sustainability routines. The findings offer a preliminary framework for integrating basic training modules and transparent cost-tracking systems to transition from passive to proactive sustainable operations in the Serbian hospitality sector. This exploratory pilot study advances hospitality sustainability research by offering preliminary insights into managerial cognition concerning food waste within a transitional tourism economy. Full article

While AI is widely recognized as an industrial transformation catalyst, how AI translates into green innovation remains insufficiently understood. Drawing on socio-technical systems theory and upper echelons theory, this study investigates how AI adoption influences green innovation and how managerial cognition shapes this relationship. Using data from Chinese A-share listed firms spanning 2012 to 2024, we reveal that AI significantly promotes green innovation by serving as an endogenous technological force. Managerial cognition (green cognition, innovation cognition, long-termism) serves as a critical boundary condition: all three dimensions positively moderate the AI–green innovation nexus, indicating equivalent technological inputs yield divergent outputs depending on executive interpretation frameworks. Mechanism analyses demonstrate AI operates through three channels: information transparency (improving carbon data quality), compliance internalization (embedding requirements into digital systems), and value creation (transforming environmental data into profit sources). Heterogeneity tests show AI’s effect is more pronounced in high-tech industries and under intense market competition. This study reveals the moderating role of managerial cognition—and its multidimensional construct—in the relationship between AI and green innovation. Practically, it provides actionable insights for cultivating managerial cognition to bridge the gap between AI potential and green innovation realization. Full article

With the rapid acceleration of technological revolutions and industrial upgrading, firms are increasingly exposed to environmental uncertainty, intensified competition, and continuous technological disruption. Under such conditions, sustainable corporate development depends not only on innovation performance, but on the ability to sustain innovation activities over time. Innovation resilience, defined as the capacity to withstand shocks, reconfigure resources, and maintain innovation momentum, therefore represents a critical foundation of corporate sustainability. Using panel data from Chinese A-share listed firms from 2009 to 2024, this study examines how CEO power shapes sustainable innovation resilience. Drawing on upper echelons theory and signaling theory, we investigate the direct effect of CEO power, the mediating role of corporate reputation, and the moderating role of artificial intelligence adoption. Fixed-effects regression results indicate that CEO power is positively associated with sustainable innovation resilience, and this relationship is partially mediated by corporate reputation. Furthermore, artificial intelligence adoption strengthens the positive association between CEO power and innovation resilience. By linking executive governance, reputational mechanisms, and digital transformation to sustained innovation capacity, this study advances understanding of the organizational foundations of corporate sustainability under uncertainty. The findings provide theoretical insights and managerial implications for designing governance structures that support long-term sustainable development. Full article

This study empirically examines the joint effects of innovation strategy intensity and gender diversity in boardrooms on firms’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. Drawing on the Resource-Based View and Upper Echelons Theory, we analyse a panel of financial and non-financial firms listed in the FTSE 350 on the London Stock Exchange over the period 2012–2023. Using panel regression models, we find that innovation intensity is positively associated with ESG performance across both sectors. Board gender diversity also exhibits a positive relationship with ESG performance; however, the effect is economically weaker and statistically insignificant for non-financial firms. The proportion of women employees shows sector-specific effects, being negatively related to ESG performance in financial firms but positively related in non-financial firms. While women in management positions are positively associated with ESG performance in nested models, this relationship weakens in full specifications, suggesting the influence of competing organisational factors. Notably, the presence of female executives consistently enhances ESG performance across models. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of gender diversity in senior leadership for advancing ESG outcomes and raise questions about whether conventional innovation metrics adequately capture sustainability-oriented innovation. The study offers important theoretical and managerial implications. Full article

Sustainability is now central to corporate legitimacy; yet, its implementation remains uneven—particularly in emerging and fragile institutional contexts characterized by weak enforcement, shifting stakeholder expectations, and fragmented governance. Although research acknowledges that senior executives shape sustainability outcomes, it often relies on structural or demographic proxies and overlooks how leaders actually interpret and address these demands. This conceptual paper develops Executive Sustainability Cognition (ESC) as cognitive governance: the capability through which C-suite leaders select, frame, prioritize, and embed sustainability imperatives when formal institutional guidance is weak or ambiguous. Integrating Upper Echelons Theory, Institutional Theory, Stakeholder Theory, Strategic Leadership Theory, and sensemaking research, the paper develops a four-stage ESC process comprising: (1) attention to sustainability cues (selective noticing and issue admission), (2) framing (meaning construction), (3) prioritization (authorization of strategic trade-offs through commitment and resource allocation), and (4) translation (institutionalizing sustainability through structures, incentives, and culture). Eight testable propositions specify how ESC mediates between external pressures and organizational responses, and how institutional fragility, stakeholder fragmentation, and organizational learning orientation moderate these effects to produce symbolic versus substantive outcomes. By framing executive cognition as a substitute governance mechanism in fragile contexts, the paper offers a context-sensitive framework to guide research and improve sustainability practices in emerging and weak-governance markets. Full article

Employing textual analysis of the “short-term vision” vocabulary in annual reports, we investigate the impact of managerial myopia on firm innovation and performance. Our results indicate that managerial myopia hampers innovation, and this result remains robust across a battery of robustness checks. Managerial myopia also weakens the positive impact of innovation on firm growth, and value in the long run. We find that state ownership and good corporate governance mitigate the negative impact of managerial myopia. The evidence supports the upper echelon theory and time orientation theoretical framework. This paper enriches the research on the influencing factors of corporate innovation, by providing evidence that people’s perception of time affects decision making and provides support for government ownership and strong corporate governance practices in alleviating the negative consequences of managerial myopia. Full article

Purpose: This paper draws on the Upper Echelon Theory and the Agency Theory to explore a special aspect of managers’ behavioral characteristics—managerial myopia—as a driving factor in firms’ ESG performance, a key metric for sustainable development. This study utilizes a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2010 to 2021. It integrates data from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research (CSMAR) database, the Wind database for corporate ESG performance, a managerial myopia index constructed through text analysis, machine learning, and dictionary methods, internal control data from the DIB Internal Control Database, and the Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) index. The study examines the relationship between managerial myopia and ESG performance and explores the moderating effects of internal control, corporate transparency, and EPU. This study finds that managerial myopia significantly impedes corporate sustainability by significantly negatively impacting ESG performance. This finding underscores a critical challenge to sustainable development: short-term managerial orientation can compromise long-term environmental and social goals. However, robust internal governance mechanisms, such as effective internal control and high corporate transparency can mitigate this negative impact, while higher EPU exacerbates it. Additionally, the detrimental effect of managerial myopia is more pronounced in firms with higher business complexity, smaller firm size, and state-owned enterprises (SOEs). This paper suggests that, in addition to demographic characteristics and management experience, corporate governance and hiring practices should consider managers’ temporal orientation to foster sustainable business practices. Firms should focus on establishing a robust internal control environment and increasing corporate transparency to safeguard long-term sustainability objectives from short-sighted managerial behavior, especially in situations of high economic policy uncertainty and in organizations with higher business complexity, smaller firm size, and SOEs. The main limitations of this study include the lack of analysis on the influencing mechanisms and not fully addressing the endogenous problem, and the international generalizability of the finding should be further expanded in future. This paper contributes to sustainability science by extending the current literature focusing on the behavioral drivers of firms’ ESG performance, emphasizing the under-explored role of managerial myopia. This provides meaningful insight into the role of executive characteristics in shaping corporate sustainability, particularly in emerging market contexts. It also adds value by identifying how internal governance and external environmental factors condition this relationship, offering insights for policymakers and corporate leaders aiming to advance sustainable development. Full article

Motivated by the ethical implications of gender diversity on boards, this study examines the effect of female directors on symbolic green innovation disclosure and substantive green innovation disclosure. The study defines substantive green innovation disclosure as environmentally oriented innovation that produces tangible value creation, evidenced through its positive effect on firm value, distinguishing it from symbolic green innovation that serves rent-seeking or legitimacy purposes. Using a sample of Indonesian manufacturing firms from 2021 to 2023, the research tests the model separately for politically and nonpolitically connected firms to capture the moderating role of political embeddedness. The results reveal that in nonpolitically connected firms, female directors do not significantly affect green innovation disclosure; however, substantive green innovation positively influences firm value, confirming its genuine strategic and ethical impact. In contrast, in politically connected firms, female directors negatively affect green innovation disclosure, and green innovation fails to improve firm value—indicating that political influence turns sustainability efforts into symbolic compliance rather than authentic environmental innovation. These findings extend upper-echelon and legitimacy theories by showing that in patriarchal cultural background, female directors’ ethical orientation negatively affects symbolic green innovation disclosure but do not affect substantive green innovation disclosure. Full article

While the link between Environmental, Social, and Governance principles and corporate outcomes is widely examined, a significant gap exists in understanding how the intensity of national ESG policies translates into firm-level green innovation, particularly within emerging economies. This study addresses several research gaps by asking: How does national ESG policy intensity affect corporate green innovation, and what key factors moderate this relationship? To answer these research questions, this study employs text-mining methods to construct refined ESG indices for both national ESG policy intensity and firm-level managerial environmental awareness. Analyzing a panel dataset of 2854 Chinese A-share listed firms from 2013 to 2023 using fixed-effects models, our findings reveal that higher ESG policy intensity is positively associated with increased green innovation. Moreover, we find that higher levels of organizational slack and greater managerial environmental awareness positively moderate this relationship. By integrating stakeholder theory with the resource-based view and upper echelons theory, this study provides a more nuanced model of the policy–innovation nexus, highlighting that the effectiveness of macro-level ESG policies is contingent on both a firm’s resource capacity and its leadership’s cognitive orientation. Full article

This study examines whether CEO risk tolerance influences a firm’s sustainable practices, as measured by Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) scores. The analysis uses facial width–height ratio (fWHR) as a proxy for CEO testosterone and risk-taking behavior. A regression analysis of S&P 500 firms from 2018 to 2022 shows that a greater fWHR is negatively associated with ESG scores, although the economic effect is small. A one standard deviation increase in fWHR decreases ESG by half a point on a 100-point scale. Further investigation into CEO turnover reveals a surprising asymmetry: when a new CEO has a higher fWHR, ESG scores increase significantly compared to firms without a CEO change. This finding, along with other confounding effects, suggests that a certain amount of calculated, strategic risk-taking may be necessary to successfully promote corporate sustainability programs. Full article

This research investigates the factors influencing organizational participation in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically examining the role of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) attributes and the moderating influence of stakeholder pressure. Utilizing fuzzy-set Quantitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) on a dataset of 220 Chinese firms, this study identifies that high SDG engagement arises from multiple, equally effective configurations of CEO characteristics (age, education, experience, CEOs in family and non-family firms, digital and financial literacy) and shareholder pressure as a moderator. Our research shows three distinct configurational paths towards participation in SDGs. Young–Skilled–Pressured (Path A): Younger, highly educated CEOs with strong financial and digital literacy, operating under significant stakeholder pressure, are more likely to participate in SDGs. Older–Experienced–Family–Pressured (Path B): Older, experienced family CEOs, supported by at least one form of literacy (financial or digital), and facing strong stakeholder pressure, tend to participate in SDGs. Professionalized Non-Family (Path C): Highly educated CEOs in non-family firms with robust financial and digital literacy, who are also under strong stakeholder pressure as moderators, participate in SDGs. Crucially, strong pressure from external stakeholders is found to be a near-constant prerequisite (quasi-necessary condition) for achieving high SDG participation. This study contributes to Upper Echelons Theory by demonstrating the conjunctural nature of CEO attributes in impacting strategic outcomes. It also reinforces Stakeholder Pressure Theory by confirming its critical and moderating role in driving sustainable practices. Practically, the findings suggest that boards should strategically design leadership teams and foster robust stakeholder engagement, as this external pressure is nearly always required to enhance SDG participation. Full article

Amidst global imperatives for environmental sustainability, this study investigates the nexus between carbon emissions reduction (CER), ownership structures, and total factor productivity (TFP) in Chinese enterprises—recognized as vital economic drivers facing carbon emissions pressures. Based on the theoretical frameworks of innovation offsets, agency cost theory, and upper echelons theory, with data from CSMAR (2009–2023), we proposed a positive effect of CER on TFP while examining the moderating roles of ownership structure metrics: chairman shareholding ratio, manager shareholding ratio, and ownership–control separation ratio. TFP estimation employed dual approaches: mean consolidation (TFP-Mean) and entropy weighting (TFP-Entropy) methods. The results confirmed CER exerts significantly positive impacts on TFP, with ownership structures demonstrating statistically significant yet directionally heterogeneous moderation effects. Heterogeneity analysis reveals heightened TFP sensitivity to carbon emission initiatives among private enterprises, foreign-owned enterprises, and small enterprises. Notably, the entropy weighting method exhibits substantial comparative advantages in TFP measurement. These findings underscore that advancing TFP necessitates simultaneously optimizing carbon emissions efficiency and ownership governance. Full article

The objective of this study is to examine the impact of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) attributes on corporate performance in Jordan, a representative frontier market. The analysis focuses on four key CEO attributes, comprising two socio-demographic variables—age and educational—and two corporate governance-related ones—tenure and origin. Return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) are used as proxies for firm performance. Using a sample of 416 firm-year observations from companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) during 2015–2023, the study employs the system GMM methodology to estimate dynamic panel data models, addressing potential endogeneity and capturing the dynamic nature of firm performance. The results show that CEO age has a positive but insignificant effect, whereas CEO education and tenure significantly enhance firm performance. Conversely, CEO origin has a statistically negative impact on firm performance, reflecting the value of insider CEOs. The significant effects of CEO education, tenure, and origin—observed within the models that also incorporated firm- and country-level controls—reflect their incremental contribution to firm performance in frontier markets. Robustness checks, including controls for the COVID-19 pandemic and industry effects, confirm these findings. The study contributes to the literature by demonstrating the applicability of established theories—namely Upper Echelons, Stewardship, Resource Dependence, and Human Capital Theories—while identifying the CEO traits that drive success in frontier markets. It also offers practical guidance for shareholders, board directors, and policymakers in designing effective leadership and governance strategies. Full article

This study investigates how the functional diversity of top management teams (TMTs) affects the financial performance of A-share Chinese companies. To this end, we examine the interaction effects of TMT diversity with organizational innovativeness and government institutional support. Grounded in upper echelons theory, absorptive capacity theory, and institutional theory, this study uses hierarchical multiple regression to analyze data from 396 firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges between 2022 and 2023. The results indicate that TMT functional diversity has a statistically significant positive effect on corporate financial performance, with organizational innovativeness positively moderating this relationship. This moderating effect is further strengthened by high government subsidies for research and development, confirming a three-way interaction effect among these three variables. The findings suggest that TMT diversity improves financial outcomes when firms have both robust internal innovation and external institutional support. By confirming the strategic significance of TMT composition in China and elucidating the effect of government subsidies, this study contributes both practically and theoretically to the strategic management literature on emerging markets. The findings clarify the implications of the contingent conditions under which TMT diversity translates into superior organizational performance. Full article

Driven by the new wave of technological revolution and industrial transformation, firms are accelerating strategic change to gain new competitive advantages. Situated within a complex adaptive system, firms must adapt to highly dynamic and uncertain external environments by adjusting executive cognitive structures, reconfiguring resources and capabilities, and strengthening collaboration with industrial ecosystem elements; hence, digital strategic change is characterized by continuous evolution. Using a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2015 to 2023, this study develops a “cognition–capability–strategy” pathway model grounded in upper echelons theory and dynamic capabilities theory to examine how executive cognitive styles, i.e., cognitive flexibility and cognitive complexity, drive digital strategic change via absorptive capacity and how environmental dynamism moderates these relationships. The findings show that executive cognition, as a decision node in strategic change, can dynamically adjust firms’ strategic paths by activating absorptive capacity in rapidly changing external information environments; environmental dynamism differentially affects the two cognitive styles. Heterogeneity tests further indicate that the role of executive cognition varies significantly with regional digital economy development levels, firm life cycle, and industry factor intensities. The study reveals how firms can respond to high environmental uncertainty through cognition–strategy alignment and resource capability reconfiguration in a complex adaptive system, providing theoretical references and practical insights for emerging economies to advance digital transformation and enhance competitiveness. Full article