Research on the behavioral theory of the firm (BTOF) highlights the role of performance shortfalls in managers' decision process. However, previous studies tend to ignore the heterogeneity of historical and social aspirations. This paper investigates how firms' green innovation, a typical environmental behavior, differently responds to financial performance shortfalls relative to historical and social aspirations. Based on the view of problemistic search, we argue and find that financial performance shortfalls derived from historical aspiration impair green innovation, whereas financial performance shortfalls derived from social aspiration first reduce and then promote green innovation, demonstrating a U‐shaped relationship. Moreover, we find that the two aspirations may interact to influence green innovation activities. Specifically, the negative effect of performance shortfalls (historical) is more pronounced when the financial performance is below social aspiration, whereas the U‐shaped effect is flattened if the financial performance is at or above historical aspiration. Further, we explore how the effects vary with financial constraints and manager overconfidence to distinguish the underlying mechanisms. Our study extends a nascent understanding of aspiration heterogeneity by revealing firms' different green innovation strategies in response to different aspirations.

中文翻译：

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抱负如何运作？财务业绩缺口和企业的绿色创新


对公司行为理论 （BTOF） 的研究强调了绩效不足在管理者决策过程中的作用。然而，以前的研究往往忽视了历史和社会愿望的异质性。本文研究了公司的绿色创新（一种典型的环境行为）如何以不同的方式应对相对于历史和社会愿望的财务业绩不足。基于问题搜索的观点，我们论证并发现，历史愿望产生的财务绩效缺口损害了绿色创新，而社会愿望产生的财务绩效缺口首先减少，然后促进了绿色创新，表现出 U 型关系。此外，我们发现这两种愿望可能会相互作用，从而影响绿色创新活动。具体来说，当财务业绩低于社会期望时，绩效差额（历史）的负面影响更为明显，而如果财务绩效等于或高于历史期望，则 U 形效应趋于平缓。此外，我们探讨了这些影响如何随财务约束和管理者过度自信而变化，以区分潜在机制。我们的研究通过揭示公司针对不同愿望的不同绿色创新战略，扩展了对抱负异质性的新理解。