Family Naming and Corporate Green Innovation: Evidence from Chinese Listed Family Firms

Song Lihong, Geng Jingtao, Liang Qiang, Wang Zhenyuan

Foreign Economics & Management Vol. 48, Issue 03, pp. 65 - 81 (2026)  DOI:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.20251231.102

Summary

Against the backdrop of the “dual carbon” goals, how family firms achieve sustainable development through green innovation has become an important research topic. However, there is still a lack of research on how family naming, a highly visible and irreversible family identity marker, affects firms’ decisions on different types of green innovation. Based on a sample of China’s A-share listed family firms from 2008 to 2024, this paper distinguishes between green management innovation and green technology innovation from the perspectives of the reputation effect and the endowment effect, empirically analyzes the heterogeneous impacts of family naming on the two types of green innovation, and examines the moderating effects of analyst coverage and second-generation involvement. The results show that family naming significantly promotes green management innovation but inhibits green technology innovation; analyst coverage strengthens the negative relationship between family naming and green technology innovation, while exerting no significant effect on the relationship between family naming and green management innovation; second-generation involvement weakens the positive relationship between family naming and green management innovation, and further enhances its inhibitory effect on green technology innovation. This paper reveals the dual logic of “reputation incentive” and “risk aversion” coexisting in green innovation decisions of family-named firms, providing new empirical evidence for understanding the green transformation path of family firms.

Keywords

family naming; green management innovation; green technology innovation; analyst coverage; second-generation involvement