Unpacking greenwashing: The impact of environmental attitude, proactive strategies, and network embeddedness on corporate environmental performance.

Though there are considerable attention given to the consequences of greenwashing, however companies efforts to reduce greenwashing is still underexplored. Beside mounting pressures of stakeholders asking firms to revise their environmental orientation in order to reduce perceived greenwashing. Hence, the purpose of current study is to examine the impact of firms' environmental attitude, proactive environmental strategy, and network embeddedness on corporate environmental performance through perceived greenwashing. Also, the current study examines the moderating role of CEO green experience. The data for this study were collected from 523 managers employed in manufacturing companies located in China, specifically targeting regions with significant industrial activity and environmental challenges. To test the proposed hypotheses, structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed as it allows for the analysis of complex relationships between multiple variables simultaneously. The mediation effects of perceived greenwashing were evaluated using the bootstrapping method, which provides robust estimates of indirect effects and their statistical significance. Additionally, to examine the moderating role of CEO green experience, interaction moderation analysis was conducted, enabling the assessment of how variations in CEO environmental expertise influence the relationships between organizational factors and perceived greenwashing. Main findings show that firms' environmental attitude, proactive environmental strategy, and network embeddedness reduce perceived greenwashing, consequently improving corporate environmental performance. Moreover, CEO green experience negatively moderates the relationship between environmental attitude, proactive environmental strategy, network embeddedness, and perceived greenwashing. These findings contribute to the greenwashing literature by identifying critical organizational factors-environmental attitude, proactive environmental strategy, and network embeddedness-that influence corporate environmental performance while mitigating perceptions of greenwashing. Furthermore, the study advances the upper echelons theory by demonstrating how CEO green experience moderates these relationships, emphasizing the role of leadership in shaping sustainability outcomes. This research is significant as it highlights actionable strategies for organizations to reduce greenwashing, thereby fostering stakeholder trust and improving long-term environmental performance. The study concludes with substantial practical implications for integrating sustainability into corporate strategies and leadership practices.