Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 3849: Analysing Managers` Financial Motivation for Sustainable Investment Strategies (Sustainability)

The purpose of the research is to examine the importance of financial rewards and managers’ motivations, including sustainable investment projects. For that, the role of financial motivation for managers is analysed to understand strategic priorities for sustainable investment policies. Panel data for non-financial listed companies in China are used to determine the best-fit values of the proposed model, and the results of the Lagrange multiplier (LM) and Hausman tests are discussed for sustainable investment strategies. The results demonstrate that both low-paid and highly-paid managers in valuable project firms tend to be conservative and that managers consolidate their positions through underinvestment. This finding is clear evidence that managers are reluctant to take a risk on sustainable investment strategies. However, highly-paid managers of non-valuable project firms are generally willing to obtain high productivity through advanced technologies. The results are also generalized for strategies that are related to project managers’ financial motivation to increase the efficiency of sustainable investment decisions.