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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Economics and Management
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1486215
This article is part of the Research Topic Climate Risk and Green and Low-Carbon Transformation: Economic Impact and Policy Response View all 8 articles

TMT environmental cognition and greenwashing behavior: Evidence from Chinese firms

Provisionally accepted
Jiawen Zou Jiawen Zou 1Shuo Miao Shuo Miao 2*
  • 1 Changsha Institute of Technology, Changsha, China
  • 2 Hunan University of Information Technology, changsha, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This research investigates the impact of TMT environmental cognition on corporate greenwashing behavior. It analyzes data from Chinese-listed companies from 2012 to 2020 using a panel model. The results show that: (1) TMT environmental cognition restrain greenwashing behavior significantly by promoting genuine environmental efforts. (2) The inhibitory effect of TMT environmental cognition on greenwashing behavior is more pronounced in firms without political connections than those with political connections. (3) TMT environmental cognition has a significantly positive impact on environmental disclosure scores for private owned or political connection firms, except for for state-owned or no political connection firms. (4) The level of political connection of firms and the intensity of environmental regulations have respectively strengthened or weakened the link between TMT environmental cognition and greenwashing behavior.

    Keywords: green cognition, Greenwashing, Political connection, environmental regulation, ESG

    Received: 25 Aug 2024; Accepted: 15 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zou and Miao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Shuo Miao, Hunan University of Information Technology, changsha, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.