1. Introduction
The rapid development of the economy has led to the deterioration of the global environment on which the public relies for survival. Consequently, many governments’ regulation of resources and the environment is becoming increasingly strict, and the media more frequently report on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in matters such as pollution caused by enterprises [
1]. Therefore, the public is also becoming more concerned about CSR. The motivations for enterprises to fulfill their social responsibilities can be summarized into three categories: economic incentives, legal motives and altruism [
2]. Enterprises with economic incentives will fulfill their CSR as a competitive strategy, thus gaining an economic advantage in the market [
3]. Enterprises with legal motives fulfill their social responsibilities under the regulatory pressure of the institutional environment [
4]. Meanwhile, for enterprises with altruism as the motive for fulfilling their social responsibilities, Testa et al. reported that personal values are a key determinant in the performance of CSR; that is, entrepreneurs’ personal attitudes are the most important driving factor in enterprises fulfilling their social responsibilities [
5].
The atmospheric environment is the first and most direct reflection of the state of the natural environment. From the smog event in London in 1952, to the smog in China today, when the air quality begins to decline, the government and the public will call on enterprises to improve their sense of social responsibility and make more practical contributions to society [
6]. Hence, for the long-term health of society, enterprises should assume their social responsibilities and effectively reduce environmental pollution through technological innovation [
7]. At present, the research on the impact of CSR on enterprises mainly focuses on such factors as financial performance [
8], organizational performance [
9], employee performance [
10] and entrepreneurs’ influence [
11]. In contrast, there are relatively few studies on the relationship between CSR and technological innovation investment. Existing research shows that under various circumstances, the relationship between CSR and an enterprise’s technological innovation behavior will change. [
12]. In addition, the results of CSR in different environments are uncertain because the fulfillment of CSR is constrained by its own operations, laws and regulations, and consumer satisfaction. Therefore, it is meaningful to explore the relationship between CSR and technological innovation investment under various atmospheric environment conditions.
The main contributions of this paper are as follows. First, it enriches the literature on CSR from several angles. Previous studies have shown that CSR will affect all aspects of an enterprise. Although CSR and technological innovation investment are beneficial to corporate exports [
12], few articles have studied the relationship between CSR and an enterprise’s technological innovation investment. This paper takes the 2016 China A-share listed enterprises as a sample to study the relationship between CSR and technological innovation investment. Second, this article focuses on the external air quality surrounding enterprises and studies the role of the atmospheric environment in regulating the relationship between CSR and technological innovation investment.
2. Theoretical Background and Hypotheses
Although academics have studied CSR for more than half a century, most research has focused on the impact of CSR on financial performance. In the study of the impact of CSR on corporate financial performance, it is believed that CSR affects the financial performance of enterprises by affecting customer satisfaction, reputation and competitive advantage (innovation) [
13]. However, there is less research on the relationship between CSR and an enterprise’s technological innovation investment. Based on the following three reasons, the intent of this paper was to study CSR and the technological innovation investment of enterprises. First, an enterprise’s technological innovation is a competitive strategy. Therefore, increasing the investment in technological innovation directly affects the technological innovation behavior of enterprises, which can not only increase the profits of enterprises but also enable them to gain competitive advantage [
14,
15]. Second, an enterprise’s technological innovation can provide customers with satisfactory products and services. Therefore, there is a high degree of probability that improving enterprises’ technological innovation investment and fulfilling social responsibilities can increase customer satisfaction, and thus enable enterprises to obtain a good market reputation [
16]. Third, due to rapid economic growth, the production and management activities of enterprises have damaged the environment. Therefore, improving the investment in technological innovation is also an embodiment of CSR [
17].
2.1. The Relationship Between CSR and Technological Innovation Investment
From the perspective of stakeholders, CSR refers to the enterprise’s social responsibility to its employees, consumers, suppliers, communities and the environment while creating profits and financial liabilities to shareholders [
18]. Different stakeholders have different interests in enterprises [
19]. For example, shareholders care about the ability of enterprises to create profits, employees want to improve the level of compensation and benefits, consumers expect enterprises to provide safe and reliable products and services, and society is most concerned about whether the operation of enterprises is legal and standardized. Enterprises should also assume responsibility for the environment, provide customers with the products and services they need, and ensure the sustainable development of enterprises and the environment with the least environmental and resource consumption. According to Freeman’s stakeholder theory, which was developed in 1984, the development of an enterprise is inseparable from the participation of all stakeholders. Enterprises should pursue the overall interests of stakeholders, not just the interests of shareholders. Enterprises must meet the different needs of all stakeholders. Therefore, enterprises need to shoulder their own social responsibilities while also taking economic responsibility.
Enterprises must improve their technological innovation capabilities to meet the diverse needs of their stakeholders. Enterprises can rely on their own strength through technological innovation, in good faith, to obtain innovative results with which to provide consumers with satisfactory products and services while winning market share, increasing corporate income [
20] and providing higher compensation for employees. In addition, enterprises can improve existing processes and improve resource utilization through technological innovation, thereby reducing wastage of resources and lightening the environmental burden [
21,
22]. Porter and Linde found that enterprises that integrate social responsibility into technological innovation will take the initiative in the market, which is one of the means for enterprises to acquire core competitiveness [
23]. To achieve the desired technological innovation, enterprises must ensure sufficient investment in technological innovation. However, some scholars believe that there is a negative correlation between CSR and an enterprise’s technological innovation investment [
24]. Not all CSR behaviors can create value for the business because they increase business costs, even though enterprises can gain a good market reputation. It also reduces the technological innovation investment. However, most scholars believe that when CSR is integrated into corporate strategy, CSR behavior has a positive effect on technological innovation investment [
25,
26]. Moreover, enterprises with higher investment intensity in technological innovation will tend to pay more attention to their CSR behavior [
27]. In other words, there is an interaction between CSR and an enterprise’s technological innovation investment. As the ecological environment continues to deteriorate, improving the technological innovation capability of enterprises is essential to protect the environment and increase the positive results of innovation. Considering the requirements of all stakeholders, the implementation of CSR should be comprehensive. In addition, enterprises must increase their investment in technological innovation to ensure their own long-term development and that of society as a whole. In view of this discussion, this paper proposes the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: There is a significant relationship between CSR and an enterprise’s technological innovation investment, and the two variables change in the same direction.
2.2. The Regulatory Role of the Atmospheric Environment on the Relationship Between CSR and Technological Innovation Investment
The concept of CSR was first proposed by the American scholar Clark, who divided CSR into environmental responsibility, employee responsibility, and partner responsibility [
28]. With the rise of environmentalism, the focus of CSR has shifted to environmental issues [
29]. Although China’s economy is developing rapidly, in the initial development stages, enterprises pay attention only to production and the pursuit of economic interests, ignoring their environmental responsibilities. This has led to a rapid deterioration of the Chinese environment and serious atmospheric problems, such as smog and acid rain. These atmospheric problems have seriously damaged the interests of the public. Therefore, to meet the diverse needs of the stakeholders, enterprises can resolve the contradiction between the development of production and the protection of the atmospheric environment by improving their technological innovation capabilities.
The driving force for technological innovation to address atmospheric pollution includes two main aspects. The first aspect is the mandatory environmental regulation by the government [
30]. Scholars who support the “Porter Hypothesis” believe that environmental regulation has a positive effect on increasing enterprises’ technological innovation investment. Enterprises expect to reduce pollution and improve product quality by increasing investment in technological innovation, thereby reducing production costs and increasing operating income [
31]. However, some scholars have raised objections and believe that environmental regulation cannot effectively increase the investment in technological innovation [
32,
33,
34]. Thus, the "Porter Hypothesis" is not established under any circumstances [
35]. The second aspect is the spontaneous behavior of enterprises, whereby CSR drives the investment in technological innovation of enterprises [
36]. By developing high-technology alternatives or improving resource utilization, enterprises can reduce their consumption of natural resources. This reduces emissions while at the same time improving the enterprise’s social reputation and increasing consumer satisfaction [
37,
38]. Studies have shown that when pollution of the atmosphere rises, the government will tend to strengthen environmental regulation and enterprises will pay more attention to the atmospheric environment for this reason [
39]. Furthermore, pollution of the atmosphere will lead consumers to call upon enterprises to strengthen their environmental protection behaviors and strengthen their CSR [
40]. Moreover, when the atmospheric environment is poor, the government will introduce strict environmental regulations and policies, and forcefully intervene in the production and environmental protection activities of enterprises by increasing environmental taxes and fines. These kinds of interventions increase the production and operational costs of enterprises [
41,
42], which weakens the intensity of enterprises’ technological innovation investment [
43]. Therefore, this paper proposes the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: When the atmospheric environment worsens, the relationship between CSR and technological innovation investment will weaken.
5. Conclusions
Our discussion and analysis of the empirical results lead to the following recommendations.
First, the management of the atmospheric environment should be strengthened. The rapid economic growth of countries around the world has been achieved at the expense of the huge consumption of environmental and non-renewable resources. With the rapid deterioration of the atmospheric environment, governments and the public have fully realized the seriousness of this problem. Even after the joint efforts of various countries, although the atmospheric environment has improved, the atmospheric environment of some countries and regions is still very poor. Furthermore, some enterprises in developed countries have relocated many of their polluting factories to developing countries such as China and India, where the labor costs are low, and consequently the atmospheric pollution in these countries is very serious. Therefore, governments should strengthen their efforts in environmental regulation, and should supervise and manage the production behavior of enterprises in a timely way. In addition, enterprises should also actively respond to the environmental systems and policies proposed by the government. They should also pursue the goal of sustainable development, take the initiative to undertake social responsibilities, and actively carry out technological innovation and improve processes to reduce pollution and the waste of resources. In addition, the public and the media should also pay attention to the atmospheric environment in which they are located, and should urge enterprises to fulfill their social responsibilities and work together to manage the atmospheric environment.
Second, the management of CSR should be strengthened. CSR clearly has a positive role to play in protecting the environment and promoting the healthy development of enterprises. By fulfilling their social responsibilities, enterprises can reduce the waste of resources in the production process, increase the governance of the already damaged environment and greatly reduce the damage to the environment during the whole business operation. They can also create a good corporate image by satisfying the different needs of stakeholders, create a responsible corporate brand and convert the cost of fulfilling CSR into marketing expenditure and increase revenue.
Third, environmental regulation policies should be optimized. In recent years, many governments have formulated strict environmental regulation policies and increased environmental governance, so the air quality of most countries has improved. However, the current environmental regulation policy has brought additional costs to enterprises, hindered technological innovation of enterprises and limited the development of enterprises. Therefore, it is recommended that the government should adjust existing environmental regulation policies and re-establish appropriate environmental regulation policies based on a full understanding of the threshold effect. This will lead to an environmental regulation policy that will not only inhibit the polluting behavior of enterprises, but also encourage enterprises to increase investment in technological innovation.
Finally, this paper has observed the following limitations, which need further research. First of all, due to the limitations of our data, this paper selected the 2016 data of China’s A-share listed enterprises and the atmospheric environment for research, which means that there are shortcomings in timeliness. Therefore, it is recommended that further work should be done to improve the data collection method and use the latest data from the authoritative source. In addition, given that China’s environmental management standards before 2013 are different from the present standards, time series verification is not possible and, therefore, it is necessary to verify the conclusions of this paper in the future. Finally, this paper uses air quality, that all enterprises will face, to measure the atmospheric environment. Consequently, further research should study the adjustment effect of other variables on CSR and technological innovation investment.