Media heterogeneity and corporate ESG performance: evidence from China

Zi Wang and Dechang Zheng

International Review of Economics & Finance, 2025, vol. 101, issue C

Abstract: Based on a research sample of Chinese listed firms from 2010 to 2020, this study explores the heterogeneous roles of market-oriented and state-controlled media in affecting corporate ESG performance. We find that only negative coverage by market-oriented media can significantly promote corporate ESG, which remains robust for a series of tests. The mechanism analysis indicates that the different roles of negative market-oriented and state-controlled media coverage in ESG are due to their heterogeneous influence on corporate reputation. Moreover, these heterogeneous influences are affected by government intervention, analyst attention, and industries' pollution intensity. Finally, we show that doing more ESG as response to negative market-oriented media coverage is economically efficient and does not crowd out R&D investment.

Keywords: Media heterogeneity; ESG performance; Market-oriented media; State-controlled media; Legitimacy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G34 M14 M21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1059056025003375
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:reveco:v:101:y:2025:i:c:s1059056025003375

DOI: 10.1016/j.iref.2025.104174

Access Statistics for this article

International Review of Economics & Finance is currently edited by H. Beladi and C. Chen

More articles in International Review of Economics & Finance from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().