Environmental Regulation, Family Involvement and Green Innovation Efficiency—Based on Sew Theory Framework

Abstract

The green innovation of family enterprises under environmental regulation is essentially the balance between emotional benefits and emotional costs, which manifests as the reputation incentive and risk aversion, respectively. The reputation incentive refers to inheriting extended social–emotional wealth, and risk aversion means maintaining constrained social–emotional wealth. Based on the theoretical framework of social–emotional wealth, this paper selects 3006 family enterprises in China from 2015 to 2020, establishes a panel model of fixed effects, and discusses the impact of environmental regulation on the green innovation efficiency in family enterprises from the perspective of family involvement. The findings indicate that command-based environmental regulation promotes green innovation efficiency in family enterprises, while market-based environmental regulation inhibits the green innovation efficiency of family enterprises. The involvement of family ownership strengthens the positive effect of command-based environmental regulation on green innovation efficiency, while the involvement of family management rights strengthens the negative effect of market-based environmental regulation on green innovation efficiency. Through mechanism analysis, it is found that command-based environmental regulation promotes green innovation efficiency in family enterprises through reputation incentives, while market-based environmental regulation reduces the green innovation efficiency of family enterprises by avoiding risks. Further analysis shows that high-competition and high-pollution industries are more significantly affected by the relationship between them. Therefore, this paper proposes improvements to green innovation efficiency in family enterprises based on the adjustment of four aspects: improving the risk management level, consolidating family control, increasing the shareholding ratio of nonfamily shareholders, and giving full play to the role of reputation incentives to achieve the sustainable development of family enterprises. Furthermore, we strive to contribute to the realization of the dual carbon goals and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).