As environmental issues have become increasingly prominent around the world, corporate environmental responsibility has begun to attract more attention. As the decision-makers of firms, top executives play an important role in the environmentally ethical behavior of their corporations. Few studies, however, have explored the motivations behind corporations’ environmentally responsible behavior from the perspective of how CEOs’ early experiences shape their decisions. This paper explores the impact that CEOs who experienced the Send-down movement have on their companies’ environmentally responsible behavior and (...) the boundary conditions of this impact from the perspective of the imprinting theory. Based on the data of listed Chinese companies from 2009 to 2020, we have found that CEOs who were themselves “Sent-down youth” have a positive impact on corporate environmental responsibility. For firms with a higher proportion of state ownership and CEOs with Chinese Communist Party membership, the relationship between experience with the Send-down movement and corporate environmental responsibility is strengthened, whereas a higher level of market competition weakens the relationship. This article enriches and deepens the research on the imprinting theory, and it also has certain practical implications for firms that hire top executives with unique types of early experiences to promote business ethics improvement. (shrink)

This study empirically examines the relationship between wide-ranging board diversity and the quality of corporate social responsibility disclosure variables in Malaysia. We extend prior literature covering broader dimensions of board diversity and their impact on CSR after controlling for board and audit committee characteristics. Using 200 listed firms in Bursa Malaysia during 2009–2013 and applying both OLS and 2SLS instrumental variables approaches, we document significant positive effect of board education level and board tenure diversity on the quality of CSR disclosure. (...) Further analysis using robust regression also shows positive association between gender diversity and CSR disclosure. Our findings also demonstrate that the quality of CSR disclosure is significantly negatively associated with board age and nationality diversity. These results remain consistent with using alternative measures for board diversity, and characteristics for board of director and audit committees as well as split samples between large and small firms. Additional tests exhibit complementary relationship of education level and nationality with gender, while substitutive relationship of age and tenure with gender in influencing CSR. These findings provide useful insights into the policy makers in setting regulations in respect of board diversity in Malaysia and other emerging economies in the Asian region. Our evidence is also useful for listed companies in setting the criteria to identify directors who can support their strategic decisions. (shrink)