Unveiling the Relationship between Academic Independent Directors and Corporate Environmental Performance

Furthermore, mechanism test results reveal that academic independent directors improve corporate environmental performance by strengthening corporate environmental awareness, alleviating managerial myopia, and boosting green innovation. In the extended analysis, we explore other potential impacts of academic independent directors on firms, which further validates our theoretical framework and baseline findings. Finally, we perform heterogeneity analyses based on stakeholder capacity differences, managerial green cognition, and professional backgrounds of academic independent directors.

The results show that stakeholder capacity differences substitute for the governance effectiveness of academic independent directors; the positive impact of academic independent directors on corporate environmental performance is stronger when managers hold green cognition, and academic independent directors with relevant professional backgrounds exhibit a more pronounced improvement effect. These findings provide new implications for clarifying the relationship between academic independent directors and corporate environmental governance, and affirming the vital role of academic independent directors in corporate governance.