State-owned Equity Participation And The Environmental Performance Of Private Enterprises

Extreme weather and frequent climate disasters caused by global warming have seriously affected the sustainable development of human society.The party and the state attach great importance to environmental problems,taking the harmonious coexistence between man and nature as one of the basic strategies for upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era,and taking the building of a beautiful China as a major goal of building a modern socialist country in an all-round way,put forward efforts to solve prominent environmental problems.Enterprises are the main users of environmental resources,but also the main creators of environmental pollution.According to the goal of our modern environmental governance system,the enterprise is the main body of environmental governance,should actively assume environmental responsibility,improve environmental performance,and make due contributions to the construction of our ecological civilization.From the practice of environmental governance in our country,the environmental performance of different ownership enterprises is quite different,especially the state-owned enterprise is better than the private enterprise,improving the environmental performance of private enterprises is the key factor of green and high-quality economic development in our country.As state-owned enterprises have accumulated more resources and technologies to improve their environmental performance,will it help private enterprises to improve their environmental performance when state-owned shares take part in private enterprises? If so,how does state-owned equity participation improve the environmental performance of private enterprises? Will the resource and technology level of state-owned enterprises and private enterprises affect the relationship between them?Under the background that environmental problems restrict economic and social development day by day,it is of great practical significance to study the relationship between state-owned equity participation and environmental performance of private enterprises.It is worth noting that the environment,as a public product or quasi-public product,has a significant external characteristics,so it is difficult to achieve effective environmental governance by relying solely on one party.The environment is public,and the solution of environmental problems must be carried out with the help of many forces of the public society.The modern environmental governance system of our country requires the government as the leading part,enterprise as the main body,social organization and public participation in the overall layout of environmental governance.So in our country’s environmental governance practice,what impact will the participation of the government,the media and the public have on the relationship between state-owned equity participation and the environmental performance of private enterprises?At the same time,it must be noted that while state-owned shares,the government,the media,and the public are all forces that promote environmental governance by private enterprises,there is no denying that private enterprises are engaged in environmental governance,improving environmental performance requires a certain environmental cost,which is worse for resource-poor private enterprises.If environmental governance is an economic burden for private enterprises as a whole,so as a profit-making and profit-seeking economic individuals,private enterprises to improve environmental performance of this kind of behavior may not be sustainable.Therefore,it is necessary to test the economic consequences of private enterprises to improve their environmental performance after state-owned equity participation,and to consider whether green is worth it and whether it is sustainable from the perspective of economic value,in this way,it can provide some theoretical basis and practical evidence for our country’s private enterprises to continuously improve their environmental performance,and promote the environmental performance of private enterprises to spiral upward.Based on this,this paper selects Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share private listed companies from 2008 to 2021 as a sample,with the support of externality theory,legitimacy theory,stakeholder theory and resource-based theory,theoretically analyzes and empirically tests the impact of state-owned equity participation on the environmental performance of private enterprises and the mechanism,and in the way of mechanism analysis,the paper examines the impact of the characteristics of state-owned enterprises and private enterprises on the environmental performance of private enterprises.Then,based on the modern environmental governance system,the paper theoretically analyzes and empirically tests the impact of government environmental regulation,media environmental attention,and public environmental participation on the basic relationship between state-owned equity participation and private enterprise environmental performance.Finally,from the perspective of long-term and short-term economic performance,this paper theoretically analyzes and empirically tests the value effect of private enterprises improving environmental performance after state-owned equity participation.This paper finds that:(1)state-owned equity participation is beneficial to improve environmental performance of private enterprises,state-owned equity participation has resource effect and technology effect,state-owned equity participationcan improve the environmental performance of private enterprises by easing their financing constraints,increasing their environmental subsidies,increasing their environmental investment and promoting their green innovation.(2)Based on the perspective of resources and technology,by examining the different characteristics of state-owned enterprises and private enterprises,it is found that when the state-owned enterprises are central enterprises and environmental protection enterprises,the environmental performance of private enterprises can be improved greatly,when the participating private enterprises are growing enterprises and heavy polluting enterprises,state-owned equity participation can greatly improve the environmental performance of private enterprises.(3)The strength of government environmental regulation,the strength of media environmental attention,and the strength of public environmental participation will all strengthen the positive impact of state-owned equity participation on the environmental performance of private enterprises.(4)The improvement of environmental performance by private enterprises after state-owned equity participation will not have a significant impact on short-term economic performance,but it will significantly improve long-term economic performance.The improvement of environmental performance by private enterprises after state-owned equity participation has long-term value effects,and the behavior of improving environmental performance is worthwhile and sustainable.The innovation of this paper mainly lies in:(1)Studying the consequences of state-owned equity participation from the characteristics of corporate environment performance expands the research perspective of state-owned equity participation.Unlike the existing literature,which mostly studies the consequences of state-owned equity participation from the aspects of corporate governance,corporate investment and financing,corporate performance,and corporate innovation,this paper studies the consequences and mechanism of state-owned equity participation from the perspective of corporate environmental performance.(2)Based on China’s modern environmental governance system,starting from the multi-governance mode of the government,the media and the public,this paper systematically studies the adjustment of the external governance mechanism to the basic relationship,and broadens the research boundary of the interaction between the state-owned equity participation and the external environmental governance subject.Most of the existing literatures consider the influence of some internal and external factors on the environmental performance of enterprises,which is not comprehensive enough.Based on the modern environmental governance system of our country,this paper studies the effects of state-owned shares cooperating with government environmental regulation,media environmental concern and public environmental participation on the environmental performance of private enterprises.This paper is more in-depth and comprehensive than previous studies,and broadens the scope of research on the interaction between state-owned equity and external environmental governance subjects.(3)This paper systematically studies the value effect of private enterprises improving environmental performance after state-owned equity participation from the long-term and short-term economic perspective,and deepens the research on the economic performance of corporate environmental performance.Most of the existing literature studies the economic consequences of corporate environmental performance from the perspective of short-term economic performance or long-term economic performance.This paper synthesizes the existing research and studies the impact of private enterprises’ improvement of environmental performance after state-owned equity participation on corporate economic performance from both long-term and short-term aspects,which enriches the existing research literature and improves the logical thinking of this paper.The practical significance of this article lies in:(1)Provide guidance for enterprises to correctly understand environmental responsibility,enhance environmental protection awareness,carry out environmental governance,and improve environmental performance.Enterprises are social economic units and production units.While gaining profits through legitimate operations,they are also occupying environmental capacity and deteriorating environmental performance.As the main source of environmental negative externalities,enterprises should stick to the economic bottom line,social bottom line and environmental bottom line,clarify their own environmental responsibilities,take active and effective measures to reduce environmental pollution,and contribute their due strength to the construction of green water and green mountains in my country.(2)Provide evidence support for private enterprises to actively participate in the mixed ownership reform.At present,our country’s mixed ownership reform is in full swing,"encouraging state-owned and non-state-owned capital to cross shareholding,mutual integration and mutual promotion",this paper studies the effect of private enterprises participating in mixed ownership reform from the perspective of corporate environment performance,and from the different characteristics of state-owned enterprises and private enterprises,to study the effect of“Who to mix with”and“Who to mix with” on the reform of mixed ownership in our country is helpful to guide the practice of mixed ownership reform in our country.(3)provide policy recommendations for regulating government environmental regulation,strengthening the participation of the media and the public in the environment,and accelerating green and high-quality economic development.Our country’s modern environmental governance system requires our country to establish an environmental governance structure in which the government is the leading factor,enterprises are the main body,and social organizations and the public participate together.In our country’s overall environmental governance,multiple governance entities are equally important,and they should work together and work together at the same frequency.