Environmental performance and corporate innovation in China: The moderating impact of firm ownership

In this study, we examine the impact of environmental performance on corporate innovation based on a sample of 11,014 Chinese A-share firm-year observations during the period from 2010 to 2017. Also, we investigate the moderating impact of firm ownership on the above relation. Our results suggest a significant positive association between environmental performance and corporate innovation. By analyzing the moderating effect of ownership structure, our findings suggest that institutional ownership strengthened the positive relation between environmental performance and corporate innovation, while state ownership played a partial role. Our findings are robust for using advanced techniques, such as reverse causality, omitted variable bias, two-stage least square, and propensity score matching. This study contributes to the literature by shedding light on the stakeholder and resource dependence perspectives on the relation between environmental performance and corporate innovation.