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Does City Honor Drive Companies to Remove the Mask of Greenwashing? Evidence from the National Civilized City Program in China

Author

Listed:
  • Maochun Zhou

    (School of Business Administration, Liaoning Technical University, Huludao 125105, China)

  • Shangrong Wu

    (School of Business Administration, Liaoning Technical University, Huludao 125105, China)

Abstract

At present, many enterprises are facing the dilemma of green management and greenwashing behavior is becoming increasingly serious. The honor of a city is an intangible asset that can bring opportunities for city development and enhance the recognition and loyalty of stakeholders within the city. At present, there are few studies on the impact of city reputation on corporate green behavior. This paper collected data on Chinese A-share listed enterprises from 2009 to 2019 and explored the relationship between the two using a double-difference model. The robustness of the hypotheses was verified by using the parallel trend test, placebo test, and PSM-DID. It was finally concluded that city honor inhibits corporate greenwashing behavior through two pathways, strengthening environmental regulation and stimulating corporate social responsibility, and it has a spillover effect between regions. Moreover, this effect is more obvious in regions with a high economic development level and a high degree of marketization, and it also shows a significant role in state-owned enterprises and enterprises with high total assets. This paper provides a theoretical basis for studying the relationship between city honor and corporate greenwashing behavior, and it also acts as a reference for standardizing enterprises’ environmental behavior and improving the quality of environmental information disclosure of enterprises.

Suggested Citation

  • Maochun Zhou & Shangrong Wu, 2023. "Does City Honor Drive Companies to Remove the Mask of Greenwashing? Evidence from the National Civilized City Program in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-21, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:10:p:8402-:d:1152749
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Tiantian Gu & Nada R. Sanders & Anand Venkateswaran, 2017. "CEO Incentives and Customer-Supplier Relations," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 26(9), pages 1705-1727, September.
    2. Kim, Yongtae & Li, Haidan & Li, Siqi, 2014. "Corporate social responsibility and stock price crash risk," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 1-13.
    3. Thomas P. Lyon & John W. Maxwell, 2011. "Greenwash: Corporate Environmental Disclosure under Threat of Audit," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 3-41, March.
    4. Xingqiang Du, 2015. "How the Market Values Greenwashing? Evidence from China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 128(3), pages 547-574, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Jiawei Liu & Wei Xu & Zhongsheng Zhou, 2025. "The National Civilized City campaign and corporate green innovation: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 74(1), pages 1-44, March.
    2. Sneideriene, Agne & Legenzova, Renata, 2025. "Greenwashing prevention in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosures: A bibliometric analysis," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    3. Giuliana Birindelli & Aline Miazza & Vera Palea & Mauro Aliano, 2025. "The Influence of External Contextual and Firm‐Specific Stakeholder Voices on Banks' Greenwashing: Effective Monitoring or an Incentive to Deceive?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(8), pages 10881-10902, December.

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