| At this stage,the overall Chinese economy has developed into the new normal,and the downward pressure on the economy has continued to increase.At the same time,the risk of economic downturn is further intensified with increasingly strict eco-environmental governance.On the one hand,strict ecological environment governance is an important requirement for the transformation of the economy from high-speed development to highquality development.On the other hand,the relative shortage of domestic energy and resources,and the reality of poor environmental carrying capacity force the ecoenvironmental governance.Under the pressure of economic downturn risks and ecoenvironmental governance,enterprises,as the important micro-carrier of the macro economy,are increasingly burdened due to rising cost pressures.The cost pressures include a series of investments incurred by enterprises following environmental regulations,such as pollution control,environmental impact assessment,energy recommendations,etc.To a certain extent,the increasing pressures have led to insufficient growth of enterprises,especially heavypolluting enterprises,which means that the survival and development of heavy-polluting enterprises are becoming more and more serious.Faced with the increasing pressure of environmental governance,heavy-polluting enterprises urgently need to effectively address their own environmental pollution,break through the survival and development crisis,and explore a path that can support their own sustainable development and healthy growth,and contribute to China’s eco-environmental governance and high-quality economic development.Although the existing studies on the relationship between environmental regulations and enterprises’ environmental practices are widely discussed,they often focus on the relationship between environmental regulations and enterprises’ technology innovations,while ignoring the impact of environmental regulations on enterprises’ green transformation,including green technology innovation,green management,and green culture,as well as subsequent studies on the impact mechanism of enterprise’ growth.The existing studies has left blank on the impact path of environmental regulations on enterprise growth,that is,the mediator of enterprises’ green transformation.Therefore,in the context of environmental regulation,it is necessary to expand the synthesized research on the internal and external driving factors that affect enterprises’ growth and the growth path of enterprises in combination with the problems faced by sustainable growth of heavy-polluting enterprises listed in China.Therefore,based on the thought about the impact mechanism and the path of environmental regulations on enterprises’ growth,this study explores the following questions in depth: Will environmental regulations have an impact on enterprises’ growth?What is the impact mechanism? If the impact does exist,what is the path of the impact of "environmental regulation-enterprise growth" ? What role does the enterprise’ green transformation play in the impact path? What impact will other potential factors,that is corporate governance and corporate heterogeneity,have on the impact path?To answer the above questions,first,this study explores the concept of environmental regulations.According to the different subjects of environmental regulations,environmental regulations are divided into formal environmental regulations with the government as the main body and informal environmental regulations with social groups as the main body,namely dual environmental regulations.Next,this study introduces the endogenous factor of enterprises’ growth,that is enterprises’ green transformation,including three levels of green technology innovation efficiency,green management,and green culture,to explore the path of impact of dual environmental regulations on enterprises’ growth.Then,this study analyzes the different impact mechanisms of dual environmental regulations on enterprises’ growth,as well as the possible mediating effect of enterprises’ green transformation based on the endogenous and exogenous factors of enterprises’ growth.Finally,this study examines the changes in the mediating effect of green transformation between dual environmental regulations and enterprises’ growth under different corporate governance and corporate heterogeneities.This study builds a conceptual model for dual environmental regulations,enterprises’ green transformation,and enterprises’ growth based on literature research and theoretical and logical analysis.Furthermore,it conducts an empirical study based on a sample of heavy-polluting enterprises listed in China’s A-share market from 2015 to 2019.The conclusions are as follows:(1)Dual environmental regulations,including formal environmental regulations and informal environmental regulations,as the exogenous factors to drive enterprises’ growth,both have a significant impact on enterprises’ growth.However,formal environmental regulations and informal environmental regulations have different impact mechanisms on enterprises’ growth.Formal environmental regulations have a significant positive role in promoting enterprises’ growth,while there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between informal environmental regulations and enterprises’ growth.This difference in impact effects is mainly caused by two reasons: The difference in environmental regulation goals of dual environmental regulations and the difference in environmental regulation characteristics of dual environmental regulations.(2)Dual environmental regulations significantly influence enterprises’ green transformation.Formal environmental regulations have a significant and positive effect on the three levels of enterprises’ green transformation,including the green technology innovation efficiency,green management,and green culture.There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between informal environmental regulations and green technology innovation efficiency,and green culture,but the relationship between informal environmental regulations and green management is not significant.(3)Enterprises’ green transformation plays a mediating role in the influence path of dual environmental regulations on enterprises’ growth.Among the three mediating paths of green technology innovation efficiency,green management and green culture,enterprises’ green technology innovation efficiency and enterprises’ green culture play a significant mediating role in the impact of dual environmental regulations on enterprises’ growth,while the mediating role of enterprises’ green management is not significant,which may be due to the cost of the internal management transformation of enterprises,the rigidity of the management system,or the possible behavior of "greenwashing".(4)In the research on corporate governance factors,the management shareholding ratio has a moderating effect on the mediating effect of enterprises’ green technology innovation efficiency and enterprises’ green culture.A higher management shareholding ratio will significantly weaken the mediating effect of green technology innovation efficiency and green culture between dual environmental regulation and enterprises’ growth.The mediating effect of green technology innovation efficiency is different under different proportion of independent directors,which means that the mediating effect of enterprises’ green technology innovation efficiency has been significantly enhanced in the impact path of dual environmental regulations on enterprises’ growth with the increase in the proportion of corporate independent directors.In addition,the incentive compensation of executives has no significant moderating effect on the mediating paths in the impact of formal environmental regulations or informal environmental regulations on enterprises’ growth.(5)In the analysis of corporate heterogeneity,ownership types and enterprises’ age both have significant moderating effects on the mediating path of enterprises’ green culture,but have no significant moderating effects on the mediating path of enterprises’ green technology innovation efficiency.Specifically,compared with non-state-owned enterprises,state-owned enterprises are more willing to promote their development by enhancing the construction of green culture when they are subject to dual environmental regulations.However,the mediating effect of enterprises’ green culture in the relationship between dual environmental regulations and enterprises’ growth will be significantly weakened with the increase of enterprises’ age.The main contributions of this study are as follows:(1)This study clarifies the impact mechanisms of formal environmental regulations and informal environmental regulations as exogenous factors on enterprises’ growth based on the theoretical framework of the different impact mechanisms of dual environmental regulations on enterprises’ growth.(2)The study introduces the endogenous factor of enterprises’ growth,that is,enterprises’ green transformation,as the intermediary variable,revealing the three paths of dual environmental regulations to enterprises’ growth: green technology innovation efficiency,green management,and green culture.(3)This study enriches the empirical research on the impact of dual environmental regulations on enterprises’ growth,and further expands the field of empirical research on the relationship between enterprises’ behavior and enterprises’ growth.At the same time,it provides management enlightenment for promoting the green transformation development and sustainable and healthy growth of heavy-polluting enterprises. |
