Research On The Influence Of Political Connections On The Private Enterprise’s Environmental Performance

As China’s economic development enters a new normal,the traditional development model of high pollution and high consumption cannot continue,and it has become a national strategy to accelerate green transformation and upgrading,improve the efficiency of resource use,improve environmental quality and achieve sustainable economic development,private enterprises,as an important part of China’s market economy,should not be ignored.Compared to state-owned enterprises,private enterprises have fewer links with the government,and the excessive pursuit of economic interests has led to a weak awareness of environmental responsibility among private enterprises and insufficient internal motivation to take the initiative to transform;in addition,private enterprises are in a disadvantaged position in the process of acquiring resource allocation,and face problems such as restricted sources of funding and a shortage of professionals in green transformation,and are unable to achieve the economic scale and technical level required for green transformation,which affects private enterprises’ environmental performance improvement.As a manifestation of the relationship between government and enterprises,political connections have a profound impact on private enterprises’ environmental behaviour and decisions,which in turn affects their environmental performance.Therefore,it is important to explore the impact of political connections on the environmental performance of private enterprises,in order to improve their environmental performance,promote their green transformation and achieve sustainable economic development in China.Based on the analysis of resource dependence theory,reputation theory,signal transmission theory and social network theory,the article empirically tests the relationship between political affiliation,green innovation and the environmental performance of private enterprises by taking private listed companies in China’s heavy pollution industry in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares from 2015 to 2021 as the research object.Firstly,a corporate environmental performance evaluation index system is constructed based on the disclosure of corporate environmental information,and then multiple linear regression models are established,and descriptive statistics,correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis are conducted using Stata 15.0software to test the research hypotheses.The empirical results show that: political affiliation helps improve the environmental performance of private enterprises;private enterprises with political affiliation have a higher level of green innovation;green innovation has a significant positive impact on the environmental performance of private enterprises;green innovation plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between political affiliation and the environmental performance of private enterprises.After robustness tests and endogeneity tests,the above findings still hold.The heterogeneity regression results show that: the promotion effect of political affiliation on the environmental performance of private enterprises is significant in the eastern region where the economic level is higher,but not in the central and western regions;the promotion effect of political affiliation on the environmental performance of private enterprises is affected by the size of the company,and there is a positive relationship between the two in both large-scale and small-scale enterprises,but the positive effect on the environmental performance of larger enterprises is more significant.Finally,countermeasures are proposed to improve the environmental performance of private enterprises and enhance the level of green innovation.At the government level,an enterprise environmental performance evaluation system should be established by relying on big data technology to guide private enterprises to improve their environmental governance initiative;at the enterprise level,private enterprises should enhance their environmental performance by strengthening government-enterprise communication through political connections,and raise their awareness of environmental responsibility and focus on cultivating green innovation capabilities.