To what extent does the personality trait of CEOs influence greenwashing behaviours across different industry sectors?

Details

Supervisors

Thewissen, James

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences de gestion, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

enThis thesis examines whether CEOs personality traits influence greenwashing behaviours across different industry sectors. Building on Upper Echelons Theory, it argues that CEOs’ characteristics may shape firms’ responses to sustainability pressures and influence the extent to which firms rely on symbolic environmental communication rather than substantive environmental action. The empirical analysis uses a panel dataset of U.S. listed firms from 2007 to 2022, combining CEOs personality traits, greenwashing indicators, ESG data, governance variables and firm level financial controls. CEO personality is measured through the Big Five traits, extraversion, openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness and neuroticism, as well as two dark traits, narcissism and overconfidence. Using fixed effects regression models, the results show that greenwashing differs across firms, years and sectors. However, most CEO personality traits do not show a significant direct association with greenwashing, except for CEO overconfidence, which is negatively associated with greenwashing, contrary to the initial hypothesis. The sector interaction models provide only weak evidence that the relationship between CEO personality and greenwashing varies across sectors. Overall, the findings suggest that CEO personality alone does not strongly explain greenwashing behaviour, but should be considered alongside governance mechanisms, firm characteristics, ESG visibility and industry context.