Cooperative pathways for the green transformation of heavily polluting enterprises: A four-party game-driven mechanism for green M&A

Mengxin Sun and Xianggang Huang

PLOS ONE, 2025, vol. 20, issue 5, 1-28

Abstract: Amid the push for green transformation and industrial upgrades, how heavily polluting enterprises achieve green transition has become a focal point for the government and society. In response to policy demands, these enterprises often pursue green mergers as a means of transformation, though under varying conditions, they may opt for either green mergers or greenwashing, raising questions about their motivations. Based on evolutionary game theory, this paper constructs a four-party game model involving the media, government, public, and enterprises to analyze strategy stability. Using Lyapunov’s first law, this paper examine the stability of equilibrium points, investigating how factors like media transparency, regulatory strength, and public discernment affect corporate decisions. The findings show that: 1) corporate green mergers are significantly influenced by media authenticity, government oversight, and public discernment; 2) media and public supervision play crucial roles in curbing greenwashing. Based on these insights, we propose strengthening media supervision, optimizing regulatory policies, and enhancing public environmental awareness to promote green mergers.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0322411 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 22411&type=printable (application/pdf)

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:plo:pone00:0322411

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0322411

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().