IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/tefoso/v224y2026ics0040162525005335.html

Communist CEOs and corporate sustainability: Unpacking the interplay of ideology, innovation, and power

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, Xincheng
  • Zhang, Xuewei
  • Zhang, Sujuan

Abstract

CEOs play a critical role in shaping corporate sustainability, yet the mechanisms through which CEOs influence sustainability remain insufficiently understood. When Communist Party membership is considered as an executive attribute shaped by political socialization in the Chinese context, it remains unclear how CEOs' Communist ideology affects sustainability outcomes. To address this gap, this study, drawing on the upper echelons theory and managerial discretion literature, investigates how Communist CEOs translate their ideology into corporate sustainability performance through the pathways of innovation. Using 7645 observations with 1633 Chinese firms from 2012 to 2021, the analysis reveals that Communist CEOs significantly enhance environmental and social performance, and such effects are partly mediated by green, digital and integrated green-digital innovation. In addition, CEO duality strengthens the relationship between innovation and corporate sustainability performance by expanding managerial discretion. This study unpacks the black box between Communist CEOs' ideology and corporate sustainability by identifying innovation as a key explanatory pathway, and it offers implications for aligning executive ideology, leadership power, and innovation in the pursuit of sustainability performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Xincheng & Zhang, Xuewei & Zhang, Sujuan, 2026. "Communist CEOs and corporate sustainability: Unpacking the interplay of ideology, innovation, and power," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:224:y:2026:i:c:s0040162525005335
    DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2025.124502
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162525005335
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.techfore.2025.124502?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:224:y:2026:i:c:s0040162525005335. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00401625 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.