机构投资者绿色关注与企业“漂绿”行为：效应、诱因与治理
文摘
财经
2025-01-10 09:40
上海
机构投资者绿色关注与企业“漂绿”行为：效应、诱因与治理
Institutional Investors’ Green Attention and Corporate Greenwashing Behavior: Effects, Incentives, and Governance
《财经研究》2024年50卷第11期 页码：95-110 online：2024年11月3日
中：张云1 , 杨振宇2
英：Zhang Yun1, Yang Zhenyu2
作者单位：1. 上海对外经贸大学 金融管理学院，上海 201620; 2. 浙江工商大学 金融学院，浙江 杭州 310018
摘要：企业绿色转型是实现碳达峰、碳中和目标的重要保障，其策略性“漂绿”行为会增加转型风险和阻碍经济绿色发展。文章从现代环境治理视角出发，采用投资者实地调研文本数据构建机构投资者绿色关注指标，以2012—2022年上市企业样本分析机构投资者绿色关注对企业“漂绿”行为的影响效应及作用机理。研究发现，机构投资者绿色关注会加剧企业的策略性“漂绿”行为，且在调研机构参与数量较少、没有进行持续关注、调研次数少的企业中上述效应更显著。进一步分析发现，机构投资者的短视行为和企业管理层的敷衍行为是导致机构投资者绿色关注加剧企业“漂绿”行为的内在诱因；而机构投资者绿色关注的同业震慑效应和地方政府环保关注的协同治理效应是抑制企业策略性“漂绿”行为的有效路径。
关键词：机构投资者绿色关注；“漂绿”行为；短视效应；敷衍效应
Summary: Corporate green transformation is essential for achieving the goals of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, and their strategic greenwashing behavior can increase transition risks and hinder green economic development. As important internal stakeholders of enterprises, institutional investors have developed a certain level of green attention regarding corporate environmental performance, but there is disagreement over whether they can drive substantive green transformation in businesses. Thus, this paper attempts to examine the impact of institutional investors’ green attention on corporate greenwashing behavior from the perspective of environmental governance in the capital market, exploring the underlying reasons and potential solutions. This paper constructs an institutional investor green attention index using textual data from investor field surveys. It analyzes the impact and mechanisms of institutional investors’ green attention on corporate greenwashing behavior using samples of listed companies from 2012 to 2022. It is found that green attention exacerbates strategic greenwashing behavior, and environmental action-focused green attention has a stronger promoting effect on greenwashing behavior. The degree and frequency of green attention exhibit a heterogeneous effect on greenwashing behavior. For firms that receive less participation from surveying institutions, lack continuous attention, have fewer institutional site visits, and receive more green attention from buy-side institutions, as well as when the CEO holds a lower stake, external competition is higher, and the stock market value is lower, green attention tends to exacerbate greenwashing behavior in these firms. Further analysis reveals that myopia behavior by institutional investors and perfunctory behavior by corporate management are the underlying causes of this phenomenon. This paper explores new paths for external driver governance by unraveling the intrinsic causes of greenwashing and extends the boundaries of investor governance effect research from the perspective of modern environmental governance micro-mechanisms, which not only enriches the research on corporate greenwashing behavior and decision-making, but also represents a new exploration in leveraging the synergistic effect of environmental governance systems. The conclusions are significant for guiding the formation of widespread green attention, clarifying the mechanisms behind greenwashing, and leveraging the effect of environmental governance.
Key words: institutional investors’ green attention; greenwashing behavior; myopia effect; perfunctory effect
DOI：10.16538/j.cnki.jfe.20240819.201
收稿日期：2024-04-22
基金项目: 国家社会科学基金重点项目（22AJY021）
