Do state-owned participation shareholders improve the environmental governance level of private enterprises? Evidence from Chinese listed firms

Abstract

In recent years, whether the mixed-ownership reform system of introducing state-owned participation shareholders into private enterprises helps to improve the environmental governance of private enterprises has been a matter of much attention and discussion. Based on data from 2007 to 2019 for Chinese A-share privately listed companies, this paper examines how the state-owned participation shareholders affect the environmental governance level of private enterprises. The results show that state-owned participating shareholder participation can improve the environmental governance level of private enterprises, and this phenomenon is more significant among industrial enterprises and enterprises in regions with a higher degree of marketization. Furthermore, there is a substitution effect between the state-owned participation shareholders, the executive team’s participation in politics, and the Party organization establishment in improving the environmental governance level of private enterprises, and the state-owned participation shareholders play a relatively larger role. In addition, the supervision effect is better when state-owned participation shareholders are from the local area and have a higher level of participation.

Does state capital equity affect ESG performance of private firms?—based on the perspective of sustainable development of Chinese enterprises

“…This kind of supervision and guidance can push enterprises to undertake environmental and social responsibilities more actively and realize the goal of sustainable development. Externally, the participation of state-owned capital in private enterprises will send a positive signal, and such participation will help enterprises build an excellent social reputation and enhance their visibility (Zou and Ma, 2023). The partnership between enterprises and state-owned capital will attract the attention of environmental organizations and the public (Guo and Lu, 2021).…”

The Impact of Environmental Protection Tax Policy on the Financial Performance of Heavy Pollution Enterprises

“…R. Hu et al 2023;Jiang et al 2023). As the EPT makes the sewage cost of some enterprises higher than the period of sewage charges, resulting in a decline in corporate income under the same conditions, in order to restore or improve the level of income, enterprises need to increase profitability and competitiveness by improving production efficiency or reducing unit costs, which is beneficial to the FP of enterprises in the long run (Kong et al 2023;Lei et al 2023;Liu 2023;Ma & Cui 2023;Rao et al 2023). Second, the regulatory role of EPT incentivizes firms to innovate clean technologies or green products to reduce emissions costs and capture market opportunities (Su et al 2023;Sun & Zhang 2023;Xu et al 2023;Yan et al 2023).…”