The military imprint: The effect of executives’ military experience on firm pollution and environmental innovation

Abstract This study focuses on military experienced executives (CEO and chairman) and their effect on two types of firm environmental strategy: firm pollution and environmental innovation. From the perspective of imprinting theory, we find that executives with military imprint, which, so we argue, instills a sense of following rules and stewardship for the collective, negatively relate to firm pollution and positively relate to firm environmental innovation. The strength of military imprint at its formation is shaped by whether focal executives had a military officer rank. In addition, working in an environment with strong pro-military culture sustains and even strengthens the military imprint. Analyses of data from 6,664 firm-year observations of heavily polluting industries from Chinese listed firms between 2013 and 2017 largely support our hypotheses (see Table 4 for overview of various tests). Overall, our efforts of extending imprinting theory to leadership literature suggest that the imprinting effect of military experience persists in executives’ decision-making processes. Furthermore, this study contributes to imprinting research by emphasizing the importance of considering imprint formation and imprint persistence.