Making It Look Green: Big Data Analytics, External Pressure, and Corporate Greenwashing

Digital technologies are widely viewed as important tools for enhancing corporate environmental performance. However, there is growing recognition that their environmental impacts are not uniformly positive and may even generate unintended negative consequences. Drawing on institutional theory and impression management theory, we argue that big data analytics (BDA) provides firms with powerful capabilities to strategically manage environmental impressions in response to external pressures. Using panel data of Chinese listed firms from 2012 to 2023, we provide empirical evidence that BDA significantly promotes corporate greenwashing. Specifically, BDA facilitates greenwashing through the reinforcement of three core dimensions of impression management: self-serving bias, symbolic management, and accounting rhetoric. Moreover, by distinguishing between different types of external pressures, our results show that constraint-based non-market pressures weaken the relationship between BDA and greenwashing, whereas opportunity-based market pressures strengthen it. Our study enriches the digitalization and corporate environmental performance literature by revealing the dark side of digital technologies and offering a more nuanced understanding of how specific technologies shape corporate environmental misconduct.