An Empirical Study On The Impact Of Public Concern On Corporate Environmental Strategy

Corporate environmental strategy is crucial for achieving green transformation and fostering harmonious development between the economy and the environment.However,insufficient corporate investment in environmental protection remains a significant constraint on China’s overall green and high-quality development.In this context,exploring the motivating factors of corporate environmental strategy undoubtedly holds great theoretical value and practical significance.In the context of the current digital economy,the public can pay attention to the corporate practices more broadly and directly.As one of the sources of corporate legitimacy,public concern can pressure the management to optimize resource allocation to regulate organizational behavior.Therefore,as the concept of green development has become a consensus,does public concern have an impact on corporate environmental strategy? To deepen the understanding of this issue,based on institutional theory and impression management theory,this study employs a fixed-effect model to empirically analyze the impact of public concern on corporate environmental strategy using a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2020.To reveal the boundaries of the impact of public concern,the study then analyzes and tests the weighting effects of corporate risk-taking,industry competition,and regional environmental regulation at three levels: firm,industry and institutional environment.The empirical results reveal that:(1)public concern has a positive impact on corporate environmental strategy;(2)the level of risk-taking strengthen the role of public concern in promoting corporate environmental strategy;(3)the degree of industry competition weaken the role of public concern in promoting corporate environmental strategy;(4)the intensity of regional environmental regulation weaken the role of public concern in promoting corporate environmental strategy.This study uses Heckman’s two-stage regression and propensity score matching methods for endogeneity problem analysis.The findings remain robust after tests involving changing variable measures,altering the sample observation window,and excluding other alternative explanations.This study explores the drivers of corporate environmental strategy in the context of rapidly evolving digital technology,extending the study of the corporate governance function of public concern to the field of corporate environmental strategy,validating and extending the research logic of the impact of public concern on corporate strategic decision-making.The findings have implications for the environmental strategy practices of listed companies in China,offering valuable insights for promoting enterprises to achieve green,high-quality,sustainable development and constructing a modern environmental governance system with multi-stakeholder cooperation in the new era.