CEO’s childhood poverty experience and corporate greenwashing: Evidence from China

South African Journal of Business Management

 
 
Field Value
 
Title CEO’s childhood poverty experience and corporate greenwashing: Evidence from China
 
Creator Xu, Rong Lyu, Bei
 
Subject Economic; Sociology; Psychology; Cultural Studies CEOs’ poverty experience; greenwashing; information transparency; agency costs; CEO individualism.
Description Purpose: This study aims to elucidate the effect of chief executive officers’ (CEO) early-life poverty experiences on corporate greenwashing and the underlying channel mechanisms and seeks to explore the moderating effects of various factors.Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from Chinese A-share listed companies from 2012 to 2022. Quantitative analyses and regression models were applied to achieve the purpose.Findings/results: We found that (1) CEO poverty experiences significantly suppress corporate greenwashing. (2) CEO poverty experience inhibits corporate greenwashing by improving information transparency and reducing agency costs. (3) CEO power, CEO green experience and CEO individualism significantly moderate the impact of the two.Practical implications: When assessing CEOs’ potential impact on greenwashing, it is crucial to consider their early-life poverty experiences. It is recommended that information transparency be improved and agency costs be mitigated. Furthermore, the moderating effect of CEO power, CEO green experience and CEO individualism should be considered.Originality/value: Our findings not only reveal the effect of CEOs’ poverty experience on corporate greenwashing and the underlying channel mechanisms but also find that their relationship can be moderated by CEO power, CEO green experience and CEO individualism.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2025-09-23
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajbm.v56i1.4920
 
Source South African Journal of Business Management; Vol 56, No 1 (2025); 15 pages 2078-5976 2078-5585
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://sajbm.org/index.php/sajbm/article/view/4920/3455 https://sajbm.org/index.php/sajbm/article/view/4920/3456 https://sajbm.org/index.php/sajbm/article/view/4920/3457 https://sajbm.org/index.php/sajbm/article/view/4920/3458
 
Coverage — — Ethnicity
Rights Copyright (c) 2025 Rong Xu, Bei Lyu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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