Report Title: Do Well, Say Good: Transforming Green Innovation into Financial Return through Tone Management

Time: May 17th (Wednesday) 15:00-16:30 PM

Location: Main Building 216

Reported by: Professor Shibin Sheng

Introduction to the speaker:Dr. Sheng Shibin is a professor of marketing at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, USA.Dr. Sheng graduated from Tsinghua University with a bachelor’s degree and received his Ph.D. in Marketing from Virginia Tech University. Professor Sheng's research focuses on marketing strategies, marketing channels, and institutional environments in emerging economies.Professor Sheng has published about 50 academic papers in international mainstream journals of marketing and management, including Journal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Operations Management, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, Marketing Letters and other journals.Professor Sheng has won the Best Paper Award at the International Academic Conferences.Dr. Sheng is currently a member of the editorial board of several international academic journals.

Introduction to report content:Although firms see green innovation as a means to manage regulatory pressures and meet customer needs, little is known about its impact on firm performance. The underlying mechanisms and contingent conditions of the relationship between green innovation and firm financial performance also remain underexplored. Drawing on institutional theory, this study examines the mediating effect of tone management, including media tone and manager tone, on the relationship between green innovation and firm financial performance, as well as the moderating effect of state ownership on the relationship between tone management and financial performance. Using a dataset consisting of 10,064 observations of 1,460 Chinese high-tech firms over a 20-year period (2000–2019), this study reveals that green innovation can improve firm financial performance through positive media and manager tone. In addition, state ownership attenuates the positive effects of media tone and manager tone on firm performance. These findings offer important implications for academic research and managerial practice.

(Undertaken by: Marketing Department, Research and Academic Center)