The spillover effect of customer executives' environmental background on suppliers' green innovation

Green innovation serves as a crucial pathway for advancing economic development and ecological conservation synergistically. This study draws on supply chain relationship data from Chinese A-listed companies to explore the influence of customer executives' environmental background on suppliers' green innovation. Our findings suggest that customer executives' environmental background significantly enhances suppliers' green innovation. This spillover effect is more pronounced when the performance expectation gap for the supplier is larger or persists longer, and when the client-supplier relationship is more stable or the geographical distance is shorter. Tests of mechanisms indicate that the environmental background of customer executives promotes suppliers' green innovation through attention convergence and knowledge spillover effects. Further analysis shows that both the customer chairman and CEO'S environmental background can amplify suppliers' green innovation. The environmental background of customer executives fosters both exploratory and exploitative green innovation. Moreover, the spillover effects facilitate optimal supply and demand matching and mitigate the “bullwhip effect” in the supply chain. This study examines the drivers of green innovation from the perspective of supply chain, offering insights for promoting the low-carbon development of enterprises and the construction of green supply chains