Research On The Promotional Effect Of Executive Reputation On Corporate Green Innovation And The Realization Mechanism

Green innovation reflects the comprehensive requirements of green development and innovation drive,which is a powerful guarantee for achieving sustainable development of enterprises.However,the positive spillover effect of green technology makes it difficult for enterprises to obtain the full return of innovation results,and many enterprises do not perform actively in green innovation,so how to stimulate green innovation of enterprises has been an important research problem.Researches on internal factors affecting green innovation have mostly focused on organizational resources and executives’ traits,neglecting the green governance effect of executive incentive contracts.The principal-agent problem caused by inconsistent interests and information asymmetry is a key constraint to corporate green innovation,and exploring the construction of green innovation-oriented endogenous driving mechanism from the perspective of optimizing executive incentive contracts is a fundamental solution to achieve green transformation and upgrading.From this perspective,how does the executive reputation contract affect corporate green innovation?Based on principal-agent theory,combing time orientation theory and signaling theory,using the panel data of A-share manufacturing listed companies from 2007 to 2021 as samples,this paper empirically examines the impact and the driving mechanisms of executive reputation contract on corporate green innovation and other contextual factors.The results show that:Firstly,executive reputation has a positive driving effect on green innovation of enterprises;Secondly,from the perspective of solving "time-based" agency conflict and information asymmetry problem,executive reputation contract can restrain managerial myopia and opportunistic behavior,and then drives green innovation through the mediating mechanisms of shaping long-term orientation and improving information transparency;Thirdly,governmental behavioral factors such as low-carbon city pilot policies and government subsidies reinforce the promotion effect of executive reputation on green innovation.Further research finds that executive reputation can also significantly enhance the quality of corporate green innovation.What’s more,the governance effect of executive reputation is stronger in state-owned enterprises.By comparing the characteristics and green governance effects of equity and reputation incentive contracts,we find that long-term and non-utilitarian reputation incentive contract can promote green innovation,while equity incentive contract linked to performance indicators has a suppressive effect,and the explicit incentive contract will negatively affect the governance effect of the implicit incentive contract.This paper has important theoretical and practical implications.Firstly,it enriches the study of antecedent variables of green innovation of enterprises from the perspective of corporate governance,and expands the boundaries of the application of principal-agent theory in the field of green innovation,while enriching the research threshold of the governance effect of executive reputation.Secondly,by drawing on the time orientation theory in social psychology and the signaling theory in information economics,we investigate the role of reputation contract,which is closely related to career,in shaping the long-term time orientation of executives through the "time lens",and by studying the unique signaling mechanism of reputation contract,we provide a new approach to solve the problems of inconsistent interests and information asymmetry.By investigating the unique signaling mechanism of reputation contract,we provide new perspectives to solve the principal-agent problems of interest divergence and information asymmetry.Thirdly,we break through the Porter hypothesis and clarify the logical relationship between internal drivers at the executive level and external institutional pressures at the government regulation level.It also provides a useful reference for the design of green innovation-oriented incentive contracts at the practical level.