National Culture and GHG Emissions

This study investigates whether and how national culture affects corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Drawing on Hofstede’s cultural framework, we focus on five dimensions: power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation. Using a large international sample of 26,547 firm-year observations across 39 countries, we find that cultural values exert significant and systematic effects on GHG emissions, even after accounting for firm characteristics, governance quality, and institutional settings. Specifically, firms in countries with higher masculinity and power distance display higher emissions, while those in more individualistic, uncertainty-avoiding, and long-term-oriented cultures tend to achieve lower emissions. Further analyses reveal that the cultural effects are not uniform but interact with sectoral characteristics, national carbon pricing policies, climate performance context, board independence, CSR governance structures, and global operations. These findings highlight the moderating role of institutional and organizational environments and underscore the importance of integrating cultural dimensions into explanations of corporate carbon behaviour and environmental performance.