A Proactive Environmental Strategy: Analyzing the Effect of SCM Experience, Age, and Female Representation in TMTs.

As the importance of maintaining a proactive environmental agenda gains significance, an understanding of the impact of the characteristics of the top management team (TMT) on environmental strategy is of critical importance. Given the impact of environmental initiatives on the supply chain, experience in this area can benefit decision‐making in TMTs for a proactive environmental or green strategy. Drawing on upper echelon theory (UET), the theory of generativity, and prior work leveraging the knowledge‐based view (KBV), we analyze the impact of supply chain management (SCM) experience in TMTs for a proactive environmental strategy. To further contextualize the characteristics of the TMT in the SCM context, we include age and female representation in our analysis as important factors in setting the green agenda of a firm. The theory is tested with an original panel dataset of 2,703 firm‐year records. Measure of a proactive environmental strategy is drawn from Kinder, Lydenberg, and Domini (KLD) database, while TMT characteristics are derived from executive profiles recorded in Bloomberg. Our findings support the positive impact of executives with SCM experience in TMTs, aging TMTs, and TMTs with higher female representation on a proactive environmental agenda. Furthermore, the results reveal that the desire for a proactive environmental agenda in aging and in TMTs with increasing female representation can benefit from the additional presence of SCM experience. In sum, this study highlights the significance of female representation and age, and makes a strong case for the importance of SCM experience in TMTs for a proactive environmental strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]