连锁董事绿色经历会促进企业绿色创新“增量提质”吗

Will Interlocking Directors with Green Experience Promote Quantity Increase and Quality Improvement of Enterprise Green Innovation

企业能否成为绿色创新主体以优化中国绿色创新主体结构,在很大程度上取决于其能否有效突破企业绿色创新动力不足的问题。本文基于资源依赖理论,利用2008—2021年中国A股上市公司数据,采用泊松模型,实证检验了有绿色经历连锁董事对企业绿色创新的影响及作用机制,研究发现,有绿色经历连锁董事会促进企业绿色创新,同时对绿色创新数量和质量都有促进作用。新《环保法》实施后,相对于没有绿色经历连锁董事的企业,有绿色经历连锁董事的企业绿色创新“增量提质”显著增强。异质性分析发现,有绿色经历连锁董事可以促进国有企业、东部地区企业和有环保处罚企业绿色创新“增量提质”,但对非国有企业、中西部地区企业和无环保处罚企业没有显著影响。从影响机制看,有绿色经历连锁董事通过减轻高管短视倾向降低了信息不对称、缓解了融资约束,从而促进企业积极开展绿色创新活动;通过提升高管环保意识来促进企业开展更多环保活动,从而促进企业绿色创新,但对企业非绿色创新没有显著影响。本文的结论不仅揭示了企业如何通过绿色经历联结来突破绿色创新限制的影响机制,而且对于改善中国绿色创新主体结构失衡具有重要参考价值。

China is facing the problem of the structural imbalance of green innovation,that is,the main players of green innovation are universities rather than enterprises.However,firms' green innovation is crucial for a country to promote green development and achieve the mission of“harmonious coexistence”of economy and environment.It is of significant importance to explore how to promote green technological innovation in enterprises for the successful implementation of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality strategy.Whether enterprises can become the main players in green innovation and optimize the imbalanced structure of China's green innovation largely depends on whether enterprises' motivation and enthusiasm for green innovationcan be effectively enhanced,which requires addressing the financing constraints and information asymmetry faced by firms.Can green experience networks help firms overcome this challenge? Based on the resource dependence theory,using the data of China's A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2021,this paper empirically examines the influence ofinterlocking directors with green experienceon firms' green innovation and its mechanism by using the HDFE Poisson model.Furthermore,taking the implementation of the new Environmental Protection Law as a quasi-natural experiment,this paper uses the DID model to investigate the differences in the impact of interlocking directors with green experience on firms' green innovation under environmental regulatory pressure.The findings of this paper are as follows.Firstly,interlocking directors with green experience can significantly enhance the level of firms' green innovation and promote both the quantity and quality of innovation.The conclusions are still valid after conducting robustness tests and addressing endogeneity problems.After the implementation of the new Environmental Protection Law,compared with firms without green-experienced interlocking directors,those with green-experienced interlocking directors showed a significant improvement in their promotion of green innovation,innovation quantity and innovation quality.The conclusions pass the parallel trend test and placebo test.It indicates that the increase in environmental regulatory pressure strengthens the role of interlocking directors with green experience.In terms of the influence mechanism,interlocking directors with green experiencecan reduce information asymmetry and alleviate financing constraints by alleviating the short-termism of executives,thus promoting firms to actively carry out green innovation activities.Furthermore,it enhances environmental awareness among executives,which leads to the implementation of more environmental initiatives.Consequently,interlocking directors with green experience positively influences green innovation,while its effect on non-green innovation is not significant.Heterogeneity analysis reveals that interlocking directors with green experience can promote green innovation,innovation quantity and innovation quality of state-owned enterprises(SOEs),firms in eastern China and firms with environmental penalties,but have no significant influence on non-SOEs,firms in central and western regions and firms without environmental penalties.The research contributions of this paper are mainly in the following aspects.Firstly,it provides a feasible solution to break the constraints of insufficient motivation for enterprises to actively engage in green innovation and address the structural imbalance of green innovation in China.Secondly,it expands existing research on the influencing factors of green innovation from the perspective of firms' internal characteristics.Thirdly,it reveals the mechanism by which interlocking directors with green experience affect green innovation,thus expanding existing research.