When AI Amplifies Negative Echoes: CEO–TMT Faultlines, Eco-Attention, and the Hindrance of Green Innovation

Digital technologies are increasingly reshaping how top management teams (TMTs) make strategic decisions regarding green innovation. Although prior research has examined the roles of TMT characteristics and artificial intelligence (AI), it remains unclear how TMT internal structures influence green innovation through organizational attention and how AI shapes this process. In particular, CEO–TMT faultlines, reflecting divisions in experiences, roles, and authority, may affect how environmental issues are recognized and prioritized, especially in AI-enabled contexts where complex information processing can amplify internal divisions. Drawing on the attention-based view (ABV), this study examines the cognitive mechanism linking CEO–TMT faultlines to green innovation. Using a panel dataset of 35,347 firm-year observations from 2010 to 2023, we find that CEO–TMT faultlines negatively affect green innovation through reduced eco-attention. Moreover, AI technology strengthens the negative relationship between CEO–TMT faultlines and eco-attention, thereby deepening the negative indirect effect on green innovation. These findings highlight the role of organizational attention in linking TMT structures to strategic outcomes and suggest that AI adoption may reinforce, rather than mitigate, the challenges arising from internal divisions.