Top management team resource-based faultline and corporate green innovation: empirical evidence from listed Chinese manufacturing companies

Purpose This study aims to focus on the resource-based faultline of a top management team (TMT) and intends to investigate the impact of TMT resource-based faultline on corporate green innovation, by indicating the environmental management as a mediator and slack resources as a moderator to understand the relationship. Design/methodology/approach Based on the empirical data of Chinese listed manufacturing companies from 2008 to 2020, this study assesses the hypotheses using an OLS model with fixed effects of time and industry. Findings The results indicate that TMT resource-based faultline is significantly negatively correlated with corporate green innovation. The conclusion remains valid after endogeneity tests and robustness checks. Mechanism test shows that environmental management plays a mediating role in the association between TMT resource-based faultline and corporate green innovation. Moreover, slack resources diminish the negative association between TMT resource-based faultline and corporate green innovation. Originality/value The study not only expands the theoretical understanding of the deeper motivation of TMT faultline on corporate green innovation, but also provides a practical reference for optimizing the human resource allocation of the TMT and accelerating green transformation development.