We draw upon the stigma literature and strategic stakeholder management model to develop a framework capable of explaining the link between environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) engagement and financial performance of stigmatized firms, taking stakeholder-oriented governance and density of local stigmatized firms into consideration. Using a uniquely compiled dataset of Chinese firms specifically monitored by the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China, we conducted propensity score matching analysis to estimate the impact of stigma on corporate financial performance and corporate environmental responsibility. The result shows that the financial performance of stigmatized firms is negatively affected by the stigma label, spurring them to engage in more ECSR than their peers to improve their legitimacy. Though ECSR engagement of stigmatized firms is found to be negatively associated with their financial performance in current study. Our results also confirm that (a) the financial performance of stigmatized firms is positively affected by two proxies for corporate stakeholder-oriented governance (i.e., institutional ownership and corporate transparency) and negatively affected by the density of local stigmatized firms;(b) corporate stakeholder-oriented governance compensates for the negative effect of ECSR engagement; (c) high intensity of local stigmatized firms provides focal firms with an opportunity to improve their financial performance through ECSR engagement; and (d) the positive effects of corporate stakeholder-oriented governance are diminished by the density of local stigmatized firms. KEYWORDS density of local stigmatized firms, environmental CSR engagement, financial performance, propensity score matching, stakeholder-oriented governance, strategic stakeholder management
With the popularity of the health and wellness trend in recent years, smartphone fitness applications have become more and more popular. Thus, this study explored factors affecting the behavioral intention to use and the actual usage behavior of smartphone fitness apps from technical, health, and social perspectives by integrating the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). We examined whether perceived usefulness, perceived ease-of-use, social influence, self-efficacy, goal-setting, and self-monitoring predict usage behavior. Based on the survey responses of 1066 smartphone fitness apps users, we revealed that all of the variables, except for self-monitoring, significantly influence usage behavior, while behavioral intention acts as a total mediator between perceived usefulness, perceived ease-of-use and usage behavior. Drawing on the research findings, we suggest that influencing behavioral intention to use a fitness app can be an effective method to increase its adoption. Therefore, app developers need to pay attention to interventions that seek to enhance the usefulness of the app, provide professional counseling, as well as an opportunity for effortless goal setting features.
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