How Tripartite Stakeholders Promote Green Technology Innovation of China’s Heavily Polluting Enterprises?
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is well structured, effective in presenting ideas, and it maintains a clear focus towards the study.
I would like to propose few points that may be helpful to complement some sections.
Introduction section
1. Presenting a brief description of the approach taken can be helpful to introduce the reader to how the authors are filling the proposed research gap
2. A brief explanation of the research gap can help to enhance the contribution of the paper to the literature. In the Abstract the author(s) mention that "most research focused on the impact of single or dual stakeholders instead of multiple stakeholders, and on economic value rather than environmental value." Honestly I'm not sure how precise that statement is. I feel you need to present in the introduction the references that provide that single or dual stakeholder and the focus on economic value but missing the other points. That will strengthen your statement.
Discussion Section
3. The author(s) can improve the section by discussing the results in line with previous studies. No comparison of results to earlier findings is carried out, missing to highlight how this paper contributes to the literature.4. The discussion and policy proposals at times sound out of proportion, meaning to say that the results of the paper alone do not provide enough evidence to make some statements. Additionally, some statements need references to strengthen the validity of such arguments. As an example:
a. "Firstly, improving green assessment mechanism and establishing the market economy system. The existing assessment and evaluation system mainly focuses on economic development and social stability, excluding ecologically environmental objectives" [Seems necessary to Provide evidence of this].
4. Other points in the Policy Implications have similar sorts of statements or conclusions that may be beyond the evidence provided by this article. Please strengthen your arguments with references to earlier work.
Author Response
Dear reviewer, thank you for the valuable suggestions which has significantly improved the quality of the manuscript. Please see point-by-point answers below to your comments and questions.
- Comment for Introduction: Presenting a brief description of the approach taken can be helpful to introduce the reader to how the authors are filling the proposed research gap
A: The description of the approach to fill the research gap has been put in Introduction section (page2, paragraph 3, line 62-77), as follow:
“...In this paper, an empirical study on the panel data of A-share listed companies in China's heavily polluting industries from 2008 to 2020 using POLS (Pooled Ordinary Least Square) method were conducted to further investigate the specific transmission paths and influence mechanisms among these factors. Moreover, to clarify the role of above-mentioned tripartite stakeholders in green technology innovation and to specify each stakeholder’s interest, the S-O-R theory is used to analyze theory their interactions...”
- Comment for Introduction : A brief explanation of the research gap can help to enhance the contribution of the paper to the literature. In the Abstract the author(s) mention that "most research focused on the impact of single or dual stakeholders instead of multiple stakeholders, and on economic value rather than environmental value." Honestly I'm not sure how precise that statement is. I feel you need to present in the introduction the references that provide that single or dual stakeholder and the focus on economic value but missing the other points. That will strengthen your statement.
A: (1) The explanation of the research gap has been added in Introduction section (page2, paragraph2, last 2 sentences), as follow:
“...However, how environmental regulation, CRS, and public attention interaction affects heavily polluting enterprises on green technology innovation in China has not been fully addressed and needs further investigation. Although some scholars have put the government, enterprises, and the public together to explore this topic, they use the game theory approach to make strategic choices [7,8] or study their moderating roles [9], and the mechanism of mutual influence among them is still lack of in-depth exploration.”
(2) We agree with you that the above-mentioned statement is not suitable for Abstract, so we delete it from Abstract. Instead, we express our points in the Literature Review section with more support from references (page3-4, paragraph 1-3).
- Comment for Discussion: The author(s) can improve the section by discussing the results in line with previous studies. No comparison of results to earlier findings is carried out, missing to highlight how this paper contributes to the literature.4. The discussion and policy proposals at times sound out of proportion, meaning to say that the results of the paper alone do not provide enough evidence to make some statements. Additionally, some statements need references to strengthen the validity of such arguments. As an example:
- "Firstly, improving green assessment mechanism and establishing the market economy system. The existing assessment and evaluation system mainly focuses on economic development and social stability, excluding ecologically environmental objectives" [Seems necessary to Provide evidence of this].
- Other points in the Policy Implications have similar sorts of statements or conclusions that may be beyond the evidence provided by this article. Please strengthen your arguments with references to earlier work.
A for 3 and 4: We appreciate your rigorous comments about the Discussion and Implication part. The Discussion section was revised by demonstrating the comparison of this study to previous studies, with both consistency and our extended contributions (page 15-17). In Implication, the inappropriate statements have been deleted and other statements were also revised closely based on our research findings (page 18).
Reviewer 2 Report
1. There is no need to use the word "We" in academic writing, and the writer should avoid using the personal pronoun 'we' throughout the paper and replace it with the word "this study."
2. The abstract is not well written. There is a need to revise with explicit contents of the abstract, i.e., the main issue, methods, results, and implication. The author(s) should provide a precise and focused abstract.
3. Literature review is partial and incomplete, and some recent and relevant contributions should be cited and discussed. There is a need to add more critical recent literature and based on theoretical argumentation.
4. There is no roadmap at the end of the introduction that conveys structure of rest of paper.
5. In terms of originality, does the work contribute enough to what has previously been published in the field? If so, what exactly does it contribute? Please mention appropriate sources to back up your claims of originality in your remarks.
6. The English of this manuscript should be improved furthermore. It is better to invite a native speaker to edit the whole paper.
Author Response
Dear reviewer, thank you for the valuable suggestions which has significantly improved the quality of the manuscript. Please see point-by-point answers below to your comments and questions.
1. Comment: There is no need to use the word "We" in academic writing, and the writer should avoid using the personal pronoun 'we' throughout the paper and replace it with the word "this study."
A: The sentences using ‘we’ and ‘our’ have been rewritten with “this study”, or “this paper”.
2. Comment: The abstract is not well written. There is a need to revise with explicit contents of the abstract, i.e., the main issue, methods, results, and implication. The author(s) should provide a precise and focused abstract.
A: The Abstract has been revised to make it more precise and explicit, as follows:
Abstract: Green technology innovation of heavily polluting enterprises is a critical way to alleviate environmental pressure and promote sustainable development. However, how the interaction of influencing factors affect heavily polluting enterprises on green technology innovation in China has not been fully addressed and needs to be investigated in this field. This paper explored the impact of government environmental regulation, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and public attention on promoting green technology innovation of heavily polluting enterprises based on S-O-R (stimulus-organism-response) and stakeholder theories. The panel data of A-share listed companies in China's heavily polluting industries from 2008 to 2020 is used to investigate their interactions by adopting POLS (Pooled Ordinary Least Square) method. The main results show that: (1) environmental regulation has a significant positive effect on green technology innovation, especially has a greater impact on state-owned heavily polluting enterprises; (2) CSR plays a mediating role between environmental regulation and green technology innovation; (3) public attention has a moderating effect between CSR and green technology innovation, and also moderates the indirect effect of environmental regulation on green technology innovation through CSR. The results illustrate that green technology innovation should be not only guided by governmental regulation, but also supplemented by enterprises’ internal driven force and public supervision, which can give implications for promoting the development of green technology innovation and optimizing environmental policy tools.
3. Comment: Literature review is partial and incomplete, and some recent and relevant contributions should be cited and discussed. There is a need to add more critical recent literature and based on theoretical argumentation.
A: The more and recently relevant literature have been added to the Literature Review part (page3-4).
4. Comment: There is no roadmap at the end of the introduction that conveys structure of rest of paper.
A: The roadmap has been added at the end of the Introduction Part (page3, paragraph1 ), as follows:
" The rest parts of this paper are arranged as follows: Section 2 is literature review about the relationship between environmental regulation, CSR, public attention and green technology innovation respectively. Section 3 proposes research hypotheses and model based on literature review and theoretical analysis. Section 4 provides research design, including samples and data sources, variable selection, and model design. The empirical analyses are arranged in Section 5, which includes descriptive statistics, correlation analyses, regression analyses, robustness tests, and further analyses. The discussion is in Section 6, where the empirical results are explored. Section 7 gives out the research conclusions and policy implications. The explanation for the limitation of research is arranged in Section 8."
5. Comment: In terms of originality, does the work contribute enough to what has previously been published in the field? If so, what exactly does it contribute? Please mention appropriate sources to back up your claims of originality in your remarks.
A: In this study, we investigated the tripartite stakeholders’ role in green technology innovation by using the S-O-R theory instead of mostly used game theory for China’s heavily polluting enterprises. Different emphasizes were made for CRS and public attention compared to published studies. Our original findings and contribution were strengthened in the Discussion part (page15-17, paragraph 2-3), as follows:
"...This study proved that CSR can positively promote green technology innovation in heavily polluting enterprises, which is consistent with Albort et al. and Gu et al..[30,31]. The essence of its internal impact mechanism deserves to be discussed properly. On the one hand, unlike previous studies, this study confirms the mediating role of CSR in the transition from environmental regulation to green technology innovation, that is whether heavily polluting enterprises fulfilling their responsibilities or not is the key to whether environmental regulation can actively promote green technology innovation..."
"...The result findings have demonstrated that public attention can actively promote green technology innovation of heavily polluting enterprises, which is agreeable with Tang et al and Wang et al.[35,40]. The moderating role of public attention illustrates that it plays a “soft” supervision role in environmental pollution behaviors of heavily polluting enterprises and it is also a complement to environmental regulation, which is in line with Zhao et al [36]. Unlike previous studies, besides the complementary role of public attention, this study also proved the public’s amplifier role by conducting a moderated-mediating test. That means public attention influences the strength of the mediating role of CSR in environmental regulation-green technology innovation. The more public attention, the more CSR, and the influence of environment is relatively less..."
6. Comment: The English of this manuscript should be improved furthermore. It is better to invite a native speaker to edit the whole paper
A: A proficient English speaker helped with the language in this revised manuscript.
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
Thank you for the opportunity to read an interesting article on an important scientific topic.
The article "How Tripartite Stakeholders Promote Green Technology Innovation of China's Heavily Polluting Enterprises" focuses on the role of environmental regulation, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and public attention in promoting green technology innovation in China's heavily polluting industries. This is an interesting article on an important topic using the advanced methodology of factor analysis. The article highlights the need to consider multiple stakeholders and the environmental value in research, as previous studies have mainly focused on single or dual stakeholders and economic value. Moreover, the paper utilizes Stakeholder and S-O-R (stimulus-organism-response) theories to analyze the interaction among the tripartite stakeholders mentioned above. The empirical research uses panel data from share listed companies in China's heavily polluting industries between 2008 and 2020.
The findings of the study indicate the following: Environmental regulation has a significant positive effect on green technology innovation, with a greater impact observed on state-owned heavily polluting enterprises. CSR acts as a mediator between environmental law and green technology innovation. The results suggest that promoting green technology innovation should involve not only governmental regulation but also internal driving forces within enterprises and public supervision.
Before publishing the article, it would be appropriate to explain a few controversial issues.
1. Quote 1 pg. 1 "China, as the largest energy consumption market and carbon emission country, ranks120th out of 180 participating countries, with a performance score of only about 55% of
the first rank country [1]." A priori, the research was published in the Report released by Yale University but is cited as "Cai, W.G.; Li, Q.Q. Study on the dual impact of environmental regulation on enterprise ecological technology innovation." In order to avoid a chain of citations, it is advisable to cite the original research source."
2. Pg. 8 "The absolute values of all correlation coefficients are basically lower than 0.5, and it illustrates that there is no multi-collinearity problem in the empirical model." But in Table 2, the correlation is 0.525 between CSR and GTI. Figure 3 (pg. 10) then shows another value of 2.081.
3. Table 3 shows very low correlation coefficient values R2 = 0.195 (for GTI0) and 0.211 (for GTI1). So what is the explanatory power of regression models if around 20% of the variability is explained? For the other models (10 to 16, R2 is between 0.065 and 0.115). Does this really not affect the models' predictive ability and reliability?
4. There is a functional relation between LEV (Financial Leverage) and Return on Assets (ROA). So why calculate the correlation coefficient (-0.463) between them?
5. According to Table 4 (in model 5), a strong interaction exists between CSR and MC = 0.447. But Figure 4 interprets this as antagonistic (moderating). Usually, the interaction is additive to partial effects, so then Media coverage would strengthen the effect on GTI. Why is that not the case here?
Best regards,
reviewer
Author Response
Dear reviewer, thank you for the valuable suggestions which has significantly improved the quality of the manuscript. Please see point-by-point answers below to your comments and questions.
- Comment: Quote 1 pg. 1 "China, as the largest energy consumption market and carbon emission country, ranks120th out of 180 participating countries, with a performance score of only about 55% ofthe first rank country [1]." A priori, the research was published in the Report released by Yale University but is cited as "Cai, W.G.; Li, Q.Q. Study on the dual impact of environmental regulation on enterprise ecological technology innovation." In order to avoid a chain of citations, it is advisable to cite the original research source."
A: The original research sources have been referenced in the revised manuscript, as follows：
(1) Quote1 : “According to the 2022 global Environmental Performance Index (EPI) Report released by Yale University, China as the largest energy consumption market and carbon emission country, ranks 160th out of 180 participating countries, with a performance score of only about 36% of the first rank country [1].”
(2) original research source：Wolf, M. J., J. W. Emerson, D. C. Etsy, A. de Sherbinin, Z. A. Wendling, et al. 2022. Environmental Performance Index 2022. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy.https://epi.yale.edu/downloads/epi2022report06062022.pdf
- Comment: Pg. 8 "The absolute values of all correlation coefficients are basically lower than 0.5, and it illustrates that there is no multi-collinearity problem in the empirical model." But in Table 2, the correlation is 0.525 between CSR and GTI. Figure 3 (pg. 10) then shows another value of 2.081.
A: Regarding 0.525 between CSR and GTI, it is the Pearson's correlation analysis before regression analysis. The main purpose of this correlation analysis is to determine whether there is a multi-collinearity association between the independent and dependent variables. A value below 0.5 is usually considered ideal, but some studies in this field have set this criterion higher than 0.5, such as 0.6, etc. In our analysis, we chose 0.5 as the reference standard for Pearson’s correlation. Although 0.525 is slightly higher than 0.5, it is within 5% of the statistical error. Therefore, we consider it acceptable and proceeded with regression analysis. A small note was added to the statement of 0.5 in parenthesis. As for 2.081, it is the regression coefficient, not Pearson coefficient.
- Comment: Table 3 shows very low correlation coefficient values R2 = 0.195 (for GTI0) and 0.211 (for GTI1). So what is the explanatory power of regression models if around 20% of the variability is explained? For the other models (10 to 16, R2 is between 0.065 and 0.115). Does this really not affect the models' predictive ability and reliability?
A: Our model focuses on the robust relationship between the independent and dependent variables, which is shown by the significance of statistical analysis (p-value). This proved the reliability of this model, which is not predictive but explanatory.
- Comment:. There is a functional relation between LEV (Financial Leverage) and Return on Assets (ROA). So why calculate the correlation coefficient (-0.463) between them?
A: In this study, all data from the panel data of A-share listed companies in China's heavily polluting industries were unbiasedly collected. The Pearson correlation between factors was calculated and shown in Table 2 for China’s heavily polluting enterprises. We don’t have an explanation of the value of -0.463 between LEV and ROA, one possible reason could be that the functional relation between LEV and ROA is not consistent for China’s heavily polluting enterprises.
- Comment:. According to Table 4 (in model 5), a strong interaction exists between CSR and MC = 0.447. But Figure 4 interprets this as antagonistic (moderating). Usually, the interaction is additive to partial effects, so then Media coverage would strengthen the effect on GTI. Why is that not the case here?
A: Sorry for the careless mistake. The interpretation was inappropriate, we have revised it as follows:
Figure 4. Diagram of the Moderating Effect of MC. It means that MC can strengthen the effect of CSR on GTI.
Reviewer 4 Report
The submitted article raises an interesting scientific topic, which is presented legibly, and is well-prepared. The article reflects scientific reasoning and is supported by logical arguments.
Some remarks:
- in the Introduction, the purpose of the research and the research problem should be clearly indicated;
- 4.1. Samples and Data Sources - how many companies were surveyed? (680 as indicated in Table 1?)
Technical remarks:
- on page 2 a reference was made to Figure 1 that only appears on page 5;
- in the caption of figure 1 we read "GTI=GTI", but it should be GTI = Green Technology Innovation;
- the 3rd point should be called Hypotheses and Model (because 1 model was presented, not several);
- in line 254, explain the abbreviation ESG;
- the caption for Figure 2 should be placed on the same page as the figure (the same applies to Table 6 concerning its header).
Correctly selected vocabulary, clearly formulated content in the article.
Author Response
Dear reviewer, thank you for the valuable suggestions which has significantly improved the quality of the manuscript. Please see point-by-point answers below to your comments and questions.
Some remarks:
1. Comment: in the Introduction, the purpose of the research and the research problem should be clearly indicated;
A: The purpose of the research and the research problem has been indicated more clearly in Introduction part (page2, paragraph2, last two sentences), as follows:
“However, how environmental regulation, CRS, and public attention interaction affects heavily polluting enterprises on green technology innovation in China has not been fully addressed and needs further investigation. Although some scholars have put the government, enterprises, and the public together to explore this topic, they use the game theory approach to make strategic choices [7,8] or study their moderating roles [9], and the mechanism of mutual influence among them is still lack of in-depth exploration.
2. Comment: 4.1. Samples and Data Sources - how many companies were surveyed? (680 as indicated in Table 1?)
A: Yes, there are 680 companies, and it has been added in the 4.1 Samples and Data Sources part (page6).
Technical remarks:
3. Comment: on page 2 a reference was made to Figure 1 that only appears on page 5;
A: “Figure 1” has been deleted from page 2.
4. Comment: in the caption of figure 1 we read "GTI=GTI", but it should be GTI = Green Technology Innovation;
A: It has been corrected in the manuscript.
5. Comment: the 3rd point should be called Hypotheses and Model (because 1 model was presented, not several);
A: It has been corrected in the manuscript.
6. Comment: in line 254, explain the abbreviation ESG;
A: ESG is explained in the manuscript.
7. Comment: the caption for Figure 2 should be placed on the same page as the figure (the same applies to Table 6 concerning its header).
A: The problems about the headers of tables and figures have been checked and corrected..
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
All of my earlier comments have been effectively handled in this revised manuscript, and the study's quality in general has risen significantly.
