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Is evil rewarded with evil? The market penalty effect of corporate environmentally irresponsible events

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  • Youliang Jin
  • Chen Cheng
  • Huixiang Zeng

Abstract

The negative response of the capital market to environmentally irresponsible events is an important governance mechanism that motivates enterprises to assume environmental responsibility. Based on the theory of effective markets and organizational legitimacy, this paper takes corporate environmentally irresponsible events in Chinese environmentally sensitive industries during the period of 2014–2018 as a research sample, and our work uses the event study methodology to explore the penalty effect of the capital market from a mathematical empirical and case empirical dimension. Furthermore, this research discusses the spillover effect of corporate environmentally irresponsible events in the capital markets. The empirical results show that once an irresponsible event is exposed, it causes a significant negative cumulative abnormal return (CAR) in the short term, and the difference between the industry and the ownership type leads to a significant difference in the duration and impact of the penalty effect. More interestingly, the capital market's penalty for corporate environmentally irresponsible events may have a notable industry spillover effect, but there are differences between the penalty effect and the spillover effect in different markets. This paper confirms that the penalty mechanism of the capital market related to an environmentally irresponsible event can effectively restrain the behaviour of the company involved and the industry to which it belongs, and it may also provide a new way for the government to build an eco‐environmental protection system of multisubject “co‐governance” and bring the punitive “forced” mechanism of the capital market to bear on corporate environmentally responsible behaviour.

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  • Youliang Jin & Chen Cheng & Huixiang Zeng, 2020. "Is evil rewarded with evil? The market penalty effect of corporate environmentally irresponsible events," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 846-871, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:29:y:2020:i:3:p:846-871
    DOI: 10.1002/bse.2403
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    2. Josep Garcia‐Blandon & David Castillo‐Merino & Nour Chams, 2020. "Sustainable development: The stock market's view of environmental policy," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(8), pages 3273-3285, December.
    3. Yassin Denis Bouzzine & Rainer Lueg, 2020. "The contagion effect of environmental violations: The case of Dieselgate in Germany," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(8), pages 3187-3202, December.
    4. Ruiqian Li & Ramakrishnan Ramanathan & Guanghua Xu, 2023. "The impact of penalties for environmental violations on corporate environmental responsibility," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(3), pages 1343-1363, June.
    5. Yuan Chen & Vinod Singhal & Qinghua Zhu, 2021. "Environmental policies and financial performance: stock market reaction to firms for their proactive environmental practices recognized by governmental programs," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 1548-1562, May.
    6. Alkis Thrassou & Giuseppe Festa, 2023. "Contemporary Organizational Sustainability: The Symbiotic Relationship Between Business and Society," FIIB Business Review, , vol. 12(2), pages 115-119, June.
    7. Chao Hung Wang & Wei‐Jr Juo, 2021. "An environmental policy of green intellectual capital: Green innovation strategy for performance sustainability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(7), pages 3241-3254, November.
    8. Khine Kyaw & Mojisola Olugbode & Barbara Petracci, 2022. "Stakeholder engagement: Investors' environmental risk aversion and corporate earnings," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 1220-1231, March.
    9. Lavinia-Mihaela BECEA & Anca BORZA, 2021. "Green Intellectual Capital €“ A Comprehensive Review And Opportunities For Future Research," Proceedings of the INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 15(1), pages 830-843, November.

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