When Do CEO Temporal Focus and Board Interlocks Lead to Eco‐Innovation? A Configurational Approach

In this study, we examine how different corporate governance profiles—combinations of CEOs' temporal focus profiles and board interlocks—shape corporate eco‐innovation. Integrating insights from the upper echelon perspective and the attention‐based view, we argue that board interlocks serve as conduits for new knowledge and capabilities that can either reinforce or challenge CEOs' temporal attention patterns, jointly creating conditions for eco‐innovation. Using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis in a case population of large European companies, we identify five unique configurations of CEO temporal focus profiles and board interlocks that result in high levels of eco‐innovation. These five configurations can be classified along two central dimensions: CEO involvement (active vs. passive) and strategic orientation (exploration vs. exploitation). Our findings provide novel insights and contribute to both theory and practice by showing that there is no singular “best” corporate governance configuration. Rather, success depends on the synergistic combination of CEO and board attributes.