CEOs' religious beliefs and the environmental innovation of private enterprises: The moderating role of political ties

Environmental innovation is an important way for enterprises to take social responsibility. Based on upper echelons theory, this study constructed a model of the relationship of religious beliefs, political ties, and environmental innovation. The CEOs of 196 Chinese private enterprises were selected as the research sample, and the multiple regression analysis method was used to test the influence of the CEOs' religious beliefs on the environmental innovation of the enterprises, as well as the moderating role of the CEOs' political ties. The results showed that CEOs' Eastern religious beliefs had a positive effect on the incremental eco-innovation of the private enterprises and a negative effect on radical eco-innovation. However, the CEOs' Western religious beliefs had a negative effect on the incremental eco-innovation of the private enterprises and a positive effect on radical eco-innovation. In addition, the results showed that political ties played a positive moderating role between the CEOs' Eastern religion beliefs and the incremental eco-innovation and between CEOs' Western religion beliefs and the radical eco-innovation of the private enterprises.