Imprinted for Impact: The Role of Directors' Environmental Expertise in Shaping Green Transformation

Grounded in imprinting and learning theoretical perspectives, this study examines how directors' environmental expertise ethically and strategically shapes a firm's green transformation in China. Employing 35,276 firm‐year observations over the 2008–2022 period, our findings are threefold. First, we find that environmentally experienced directors significantly boost green transformation (measured via advanced text analysis). Second, ESG funds and green investors strengthen this relationship, while financial constraints weaken it. Third, mediation analyses identify that ESG performance acts as the key mediator. We employ panel data regression techniques with firm and year fixed effects and clustering at the firm level. Our results are robust across different identification strategies, including reverse causality, two‐stage least squares method, and entropy balance method, among others. Overall, our findings reveal ethically imprinted governance's critical role in advancing beyond symbolic compliance, offering policymakers and boards actionable insights for China's “dual carbon” transition and global environmental stewardship.