官员访问与企业ESG背离

Visits by Officials and Corporate ESG Deviation

目前ESG指标体系存在重视总体评价忽略维度关联等问题,导致在缺乏统一标准的情况下,企业会根据内外部环境改变利益相关者的优先顺序,从而产生对ESG的“厚此薄彼”现象,即企业ESG背离。目前鲜有研究关注企业ESG背离问题,对企业ESG背离行为形成机制的探索也较为匮乏。基于资源依赖理论和新制度理论,从政府非正式机制视角,理论分析和实证检验官员访问对企业ESG背离行为的影响机理。选取2013年至2018年中国重污染行业上市企业为样本,通过企业环境责任、社会责任和治理责任的评分数据来评价企业承担ESG各维度责任的情况,提出企业ESG背离行为的测量方式,检验官员访问对企业承担环境责任和ESG背离行为的影响;从监督和资源两个方面检验官员访问影响企业ESG背离的机制;根据异质性特征,检验产权性质和环境规制对官员访问与企业ESG背离关系的差异性影响。研究结果表明,官员访问对企业承担环境责任和ESG背离行为产生显著正向影响,说明官员访问有利于企业积极承担环境责任,但也诱发了ESG背离行为的发生。基于监督视角和资源视角的中介检验表明,官员访问引发企业ESG背离是通过环保监督和环保补助两种机制产生作用。进一步研究发现,官员访问对企业ESG背离的影响,在国有企业和环境规制较强地区的企业更为明显。拓展性研究发现,随着官员等级的提高,官员访问对企业ESG背离的促进作用得到增强;官员访问促进了企业ESG整体表现的提升。从官员访问这一非正式机制视角解释企业ESG背离的形成机制,拓展了企业策略性承担环境责任的研究。国家应进一步完善环境治理体系,推动由政府、社会和企业共同承担环境责任,防范企业过度响应环保政策而出现的激励扭曲现象。企业履行ESG需要平衡自身的长期发展战略与短期经营目标,在完成环保目标的同时,兼顾其他利益相关者责任,实现企业ESG责任的包容性发展。

At present,the ESG indicator system emphasizes on overall evaluation,yet neglects dimensional correlation,which leads to the phenomenon of companies changing their stakeholder priorities according to the internal and external environment in the absence of consistent standards,a phenomenon referred to as corporate ESG deviation.However,there is a paucity of literature on corporate ESG deviation and a lack of exploration of the mechanisms that shape corporate ESG deviation.Based on resource dependency theory and new institutionalism theory,this study from the perspective of informal government mechanism,theoretically analyses and empirically tests the mechanism of the influence of visits by officials on corporate ESG deviant behaviors.Selecting a sample of Chinese listed companies in the heavy pollution industry during the period 2013-2018,this study evaluates the responsibility of corporate ESG dimensions by using the data of corporate environmental responsibility,social responsibility and governance responsibility scores.Based on this,this study further proposes a measure of corporate ESG deviation and tests the direct impact of visits by officials on corporate environmental responsibility and ESG deviation.This study also examines the mechanisms of the influence of visits by officials on corporate ESG deviation from supervision path and resources path.Further,this study tests the moderating effect of the nature of property rights and environmental regulation on the relationship between visits by officials and corporate ESG deviation,based on heterogeneity characteristics.This study finds that visits by officials have a significant positive impact on environmental responsibility and corporate ESG deviation,indicating that visits by officials promote corporate environmental responsibility and corporate ESG deviation at the same time.The intermediary test conducted through supervision and resource path,shows that visits by officials improve corporate ESG deviation by promoting environmental protection supervision and environmental protection subsidies.Further study shows that the impact of visits by officials on corporate ESG deviation has been strengthened in state-owned enterprises and enterprises located in the areas with strong environmental regulations.Furthermore,the extension study not only finds that the promotion effect of visits by officials on ESG deviation is enhanced with the increase of official rank,but also finds that visits by officials promote the overall improvement of ESG performance.This study illustrates the influence of visits by officials on corporate ESG deviant behaviors from the perspective of formation mechanism,expands the research of corporate strategic environmental responsibility.The policy implication that national environmental governance system should be further improved,and the government,society and enterprises should jointly assume environmental responsibilities to prevent incentive distortion caused by excessive responses of enterprises to environmental protection policies.Meanwhile,enterprises need to balance their long-term development strategy and short-term business objectives when undertaking ESG responsibility by considering other stakeholders when achieving environmental protection objectives,promoting the inclusive development of ESG responsibility.