Research On The Impact Of Green Mergers And Acquisitions Of Heavily Polluting Enterprises On Green Technology Innovatio

At present,China’s ecological civilization construction is in a critical period of increasing pressure,and there is a serious gap between the people’s growing demand for a better life and the current situation of industrial pollution control;Heavy pollution enterprises are an important part of China’s economic development.Because of their traditional industrial production mode,they have caused great damage to the environment.Green M&A,as a special mode of technology M&A and environmental protection investment,provides opportunities for the green transformation of heavily polluting enterprises;Green M&A can enable enterprises to quickly acquire the environmental protection technology,resources and talents of the target enterprises,greatly improve the possibility of green technology innovation,and then help enterprises achieve the green transformation goal.Based on stakeholder theory,resource-based theory,knowledge-based theory,and M&A synergy theory,this paper selects the heavy pollution enterprises that have undergone mergers and acquisitions in China’s A-share market from 2010 to 2020 as the research object,analyzes and tests the relationship between the green M&A of heavily polluted enterprises and the green technology innovation of enterprises,deeply analyzes the transmission mechanism,and explores the regulatory role of the marketization process and public environmental concerns on the relationship between the two.In addition,this paper further classifies the heavy-polluting enterprises according to the nature of property rights,and compares regulation differences of the marketization process and public environmental concerns.Finally,according to the conclusions of the study,we give feasible suggestions to enterprises,governments and external stakeholders.The research results show that:(1)Green M&A can promote green technological innovation of heavy pollution enterprises,which is reflected in the increase in the number of green invention patent applications after M&A.This shows that the green M&A of heavy pollution enterprises is not a "green drift" under the guise of environmental protection,but a genuine move to promote green transformation.(2)Heavy pollution enterprises can alleviate corporate financing constraints through green M&A,increase R&D investment intensity,and enhance corporate knowledge absorption and utilization capabilities,thereby improving corporate green technology innovation capabilities.(3)The marketization process can strengthen the supervision of the environmental behavior of heavy pollution enterprises,provide a transparent business environment for enterprises,and help enterprises attract R&D talents,thus strengthening the positive relationship between green M&A and green technology innovation of heavy pollution enterprises.In order to form a virtuous circle with the public,public environmental concerns force heavy pollution enterprises to carry out green technology innovation activities after green M&A,produce environmentally friendly products,and provide low-carbon services.(4)The marketization process will alleviate the credit discrimination of financial institutions against non-state-owned enterprises.Due to the lack of natural reputation advantages,non-state-owned enterprises are more likely to be supervised by the market.Therefore,compared with state-owned enterprises,the marketization process has a more obvious strengthening effect on the positive relationship between green M&A and green technology innovation of non-state-owned heavy pollution enterprises.The public ’s environmental demands can be directly conveyed to the government.State-owned enterprises are the executors of the government’s will.Therefore,compared with non-state-owned enterprises,public environmental concerns can strengthen the positive role of green M&A of state-owned heavy pollution enterprises in promoting green technology innovation.(5)Compared with the enterprises in the mature period and the recession period,the green technology innovation ability of the growing enterprises after green M&A is stronger.Compared with enterprises with low-competition industry,green M&A of heavy pollution enterprises with high-competition industry have a more significant role in promoting green technology innovation.