Business School, Xi'an University of Finance and Economics, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.
Management School, Xi'an University of Finance and Economics, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China.
PLoS One. 2023 Jan 18;18(1):e0279904. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279904. eCollection 2023.
With the increasing attention of the capital market to environmental, social and governance information, sustainability reporting has become an important carrier for stakeholders to gain insight into sustainability of companies. But the emerged "greenwashing" problem has also brought haze to the value creation of capital market. To study the consequences of the pseudo-social responsibility behavior of "greenwashing", this paper takes China's listed companies as the research sample to empirically examine the relationship between sustainability reporting "greenwashing" and "shared value" creation. It is found that the "greenwashing" behavior of corporate sustainability reporting significantly reduces the "shared value" creation, while the degree of sustainability information asymmetry and the quality of information disclosure play a partial mediation role between them. Further analysis shows that the more effective internal control of a company and the greater pressure of external media supervision, the more conducive to weaken the negative impact of "greenwashing" on "shared value" creation. This paper enriches the literature on the economic consequences of "greenwashing" in sustainability disclosure and the influencing factors of "shared value" creation, extends the research on information disclosure and "shared value" from financial information to non-financial information. The results call for the state to promote legislative work, formulate unified standards and compress the "greenwashing" gray space; Governments could implement mandatory disclosure, implement independent authentication and strengthen "greenwashing" social supervision; Companies should strengthen capacity building and improve the "greenwashing" governance mechanism with the help of digital empowerment.
随着资本市场对环境、社会和治理信息的关注度不断提高，可持续发展报告已成为利益相关者深入了解公司可持续性的重要载体。但新兴的“漂绿”问题也给资本市场的价值创造带来了阴霾。为了研究“漂绿”这种伪社会责任行为的后果，本文以中国上市公司为研究样本，实证检验了可持续发展报告“漂绿”与“共享价值”创造之间的关系。研究发现，企业可持续发展报告的“漂绿”行为显著降低了“共享价值”的创造，而可持续性信息不对称程度和信息披露质量在两者之间起着部分中介作用。进一步的分析表明，公司内部控制越有效，外部媒体监督的压力越大，越有利于削弱“漂绿”对“共享价值”创造的负面影响。本文丰富了可持续发展披露中“漂绿”经济后果以及“共享价值”创造影响因素的文献，将信息披露和“共享价值”的研究从财务信息扩展到非财务信息。研究结果呼吁国家推动立法工作，制定统一标准，压缩“漂绿”的灰色空间；政府可以实施强制性披露，实施独立认证，并加强“漂绿”的社会监督；公司应借助数字赋能加强能力建设，完善“漂绿”治理机制。
