Clan culture and green innovation of family firms: the mediating role of socioemotional wealth

Nowadays the clan cultural heritage continues to exert an enduring influence on social norms and individual behaviour in regions with a prolonged history of clan exposure. Drawing on insights from clan culture research and socioemotional wealth (SEW) perspective, we aim to investigate the effect of clan culture on green innovation and the mediating role of family control and intergenerational succession in the context of family firms, where a group of members with family ties is the dominant coalition and SEW is assumed to be an important reference point for their strategic decision-making. Based on Chinese genealogy information and a national large-scale survey of Chinese private firms, the empirical results indicate that clan culture will jeopardise local family firms' green innovation engagement. Besides, clan culture will reinforce the controlling family's preference for family control and thus inhibit green innovation, and clan culture will also reinforce the controlling family's preference for intergenerational succession and thus promote green innovation. Our study suggests that although in total, clan culture will inhibit green innovation of local family firms, it also bears the potential benefit of sustainability due to its emphasis on intergenerational succession.