Cognitive Diversity of Top Management Team, Environmental Technology and Information Identification – Evidence from Environmental Protection Enterprise in China

Abstract

Environmental technology is the core power for environmental protection enterprise. Top management team (TMT) has an important impact on developing direction of environmental technology. In this paper, environmental protection enterprises in China are selected as samples to examine that how does cognitive diversity of TMT affect the directions of environmental technology. Environmental technology is divided into acquisition of environmental patent and independent environmental innovation. It finds that cognitive diversity has positive impacts on acquisition of environmental patent and independent environmental innovation. It also shows that environmental protection enterprise develops new environmental technology through acquisition of environmental patent. We further explore the role of ability of information identification on environmental technology. The results demonstrate that there is a promotional effect of cognitive diversity on acquisition of environmental patent and independent environmental innovation by promoting ability of information identification. Finally, the results of heterogeneity analysis show that cognitive diversity in those environmental protection enterprises with high-level technology has a significant effect on independent environmental innovation. However, for those enterprises who has no high-level technology, cognitive diversity of TMT plays a positive role on acquisition of environmental patent through ability of information identification.