Abstract
High-polluting industries are important sources of pollutant emissions, and closely related to many environmental issues. High-polluting firms face the pressure to exploit technological innovation for improving their environmental operations. This paper explores the impact of corporate social responsibility and public attention on the innovation performance of high-polluting firms. Based on a sample of China’s listed firms in high-polluting industries from 2011 to 2016, we use a panel data model to investigate the associations among corporate social responsibility, public attention and innovation performance. The results show that there is a positive association between corporate social responsibility and innovation performance. There is a positive association between public attention and innovation performance as well. The pressure of regional economies can hinder innovation performance. Furthermore, in the subsample of state-owned enterprises, the association between public attention and innovation performance is more pronounced. Meanwhile, the corporate social responsibility of non-state-owned enterprises plays a stronger role for innovation performance, but its effect will be limited by the pressure of regional economies. Our results can help high-polluting firms implement the innovation strategies for obtaining more environmental benefits and achieving sustainable development.
Highlights
Environmental issues have attracted serious attention of governments around the world
Based on the signal theory and the legitimacy theory, we explore the impact of corporate social responsibility and public attention on the innovation performance high-polluting firms
It is worth noting that this kind of pressure can strengthen the positive impacts of corporate social responsibility and public attention, so that high-polluting firms should deal with the relationship between productivity losses and environmental benefits
Summary
Environmental issues have attracted serious attention of governments around the world These problems are closely related to the consumption of natural resources and the pollutant emissions of different industries. Among these environmental issues, high-polluting industries are important sources of pollutant emissions, and can even trigger some extreme weather events, such as sandstorms and smog. Innovation performance can be driven by different factors, such as corporate characteristics, market demand, resources, partnerships and so on [11]. In terms of corporate characteristics, profitability is an important factor of financial performance for maintaining long-term development of enterprises, and it provides sufficient support for technological innovation. Najafi-Tavani et al analyzed the impact of collaborative innovation networks on innovation performance, proposing that partnerships between firms and research organizations can promote innovation performance under competitive environment [25]
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