How to drive heavily polluting companies to fulfill environmental responsibility? The synergy between environmental regulation and digital media coverage

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of how environmental regulation and digital media coverage, as formal and informal external monitoring mechanisms, affect corporate environmental responsibility fulfillment. Using the data of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies in China's heavily polluting industries, this study showed that both environmental regulation and digital media coverage significantly improve responsive and strategic environmental responsibility fulfillment. After distinguishing the media tone, it was found that positive digital media coverage promotes the fulfillment of both responsive and strategic environmental responsibilities. In contrast, negative digital media coverage only stimulates the fulfillment of responsive environmental responsibility, which reflected an asymmetrical effect of media tone. Further, the hierarchy of governance amplifies the role of environmental regulation in triggering the fulfillment of responsive environmental responsibility but weakens its value to strategic environmental responsibility. Inconsistent with our predictions, the relationship between digital media coverage and corporate environmental responsibility fulfillment could not be significantly moderated by Confucian culture. In addition, environmental regulation and digital media coverage only existed in companies with separate chairperson and manager positions, which indicated that an excellent internal governance environment is a prerequisite for external monitoring mechanisms to play a role in environmental governance. This study enriches the literature on how to drive responsive and strategic environmental responsibility by uncovering an external governance effect of environmental regulation and digital media coverage on the fulfillment of corporate environmental responsibility, and provides inspiration for multiple environmental governance actors to promote the construction of ecological civilization collaboratively.