Open Access Journal Article

Innovation under environmental constraints: Does corporate environmental responsibility matter in green innovation?

by Haitao Wu a orcid ,  Shiyao Xia a ,  Xiaofei Long a ,  Jingyan Chen a ,  Chenzejia Li a  and  Yu Hao a,b,c,d,e,*
a
School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, China
b
Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China
c
Sustainable Development Research Institute for Economy and Society of Beijing, Beijing, China
d
Beijing Key Lab of Energy Economics and Environmental Management, Beijing, China
e
Yangtze Delta Region Academy of Beijing Institute of Technology, Jiaxing, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
JIE  2024, 21; 1(4), 21; https://doi.org/10.58567/jie01040005
Received: 15 November 2023 / Accepted: 26 December 2023 / Published Online: 15 January 2024
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Abstract

When human civilization is thriving to the rapid economic and social development, the deteriorating ecological environment has also pressured the society to put environmental protection issues on the agenda future development. Therefore, green innovation is not merely a requirement for a corporate’s long-term development but the basics of sustainable development of human society. As an objective indicator to measure a company's commitment to social responsibility, corporate environmental responsibility has an extremely important impact on a corporate's business philosophy and innovation strategy. However, the existing literature rarely studies between these two variables. This paper collects the data of listed companies from 2010 to 2019 and empirically tests the impact of corporate environmental responsibility on corporate green innovation. The study finds that corporate environmental responsibility can promote green innovation by reducing financing constraints, improving corporate governance and increasing government subsidies and R&D investment, and the result is still significant under a series of robustness checks. The placebo test suggests that the Jiangsu enterprise responsibility construction pilot has facilitated the development of enterprises' green innovation to a great extent. The conclusions enrich existing literature on corporate environmental responsibility and corporate green innovation, providing implications for government policy orientation, social atmosphere guidance and corporate strategic decision-making process.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility; Corporate green innovation; Finance constraint; Corporate governance; Government subsidy; Research and development investment;
Copyright: © 2024 by Wu, Xia, Long, Chen, Li and Hao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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ACS Style
Wu, H.; Xia, S.; Long, X.; Chen, J.; Li, C.; Hao, Y. Innovation under environmental constraints: Does corporate environmental responsibility matter in green innovation?. Journal of Information Economics, 2023, 1, 21. https://doi.org/10.58567/jie01040005
AMA Style
Wu H, Xia S, Long X, Chen J, Li C, Hao Y. Innovation under environmental constraints: Does corporate environmental responsibility matter in green innovation?. Journal of Information Economics; 2023, 1(4):21. https://doi.org/10.58567/jie01040005
Chicago/Turabian Style
Wu, Haitao; Xia, Shiyao; Long, Xiaofei; Chen, Jingyan; Li, Chenzejia; Hao, Yu 2023. "Innovation under environmental constraints: Does corporate environmental responsibility matter in green innovation?" Journal of Information Economics 1, no.4:21. https://doi.org/10.58567/jie01040005
APA style
Wu, H., Xia, S., Long, X., Chen, J., Li, C., & Hao, Y. (2023). Innovation under environmental constraints: Does corporate environmental responsibility matter in green innovation?. Journal of Information Economics, 1(4), 21. https://doi.org/10.58567/jie01040005

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