The impact of product market competition on corporate environmental responsibility

X. H. Meng, S. X. Zeng (), X. M. Xie and G. Y. Qi
Additional contact information
X. H. Meng: Soochow University
S. X. Zeng: Shanghai Jiaotong University
X. M. Xie: Shanghai University
G. Y. Qi: East China University of Science and Technology

Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 2016, vol. 33, issue 1, No 10, 267-291

Abstract: Abstract Although the mainstream of current thinking in the business literature recognizes that firms should invest in environmental responsibility, the theory on how product market competition affects firms’ environmental responsibility remains undeveloped. Using cost-benefit analysis, we hypothesize that the relationship between product market competition (i.e., differential industry-level competition and heterogeneous firm-level market power) and corporate environmental responsibility (CER) will be curvilinear. We find support for this hypothesis through an empirical test on a panel of 792 listed manufacturing companies from 2006 to 2008 in China. The results show that (1) either too much or too little industrial competition and (2) either too much or too little firm-level market power lead to lower environmental responsibility. Our results reveal that CER is strategically chosen and related to competitive situations.

Keywords: Product market competition; Market power; Corporate environmental responsibility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (39)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10490-015-9450-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:kap:asiapa:v:33:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1007_s10490-015-9450-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... 29/journal/10490/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10490-015-9450-z

Access Statistics for this article

Asia Pacific Journal of Management is currently edited by Jane Lu

More articles in Asia Pacific Journal of Management from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().