Search Results (2)

Corporate greenwashing has emerged as a pervasive and systemic threat to global sustainability efforts, undermining regulatory effectiveness and obstructing progress toward multiple United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. As environmental opportunism increasingly diffuses across interconnected industrial supply networks, it evolves from isolated corporate misconduct into a chain-level governance challenge with significant systemic risks. Traditional governance mechanisms—whether market-based self-regulation or top-down administrative control—have proven insufficient, while the effectiveness of hybrid approaches integrating administrative coordination with market dynamics remains largely unexplored. This study investigates China’s Chain Leader Policy, a novel hybrid governance model that combines formal administrative authority with market coordination mechanisms to systematically address environmental opportunism across industrial supply networks, and its impact on mitigating greenwashing. Employing a multi-period difference-in-differences design on 12,334 firm-year observations of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2023, we find that the policy reduces corporate greenwashing by 10.8% through four pathways: stabilizing supply–demand relationships, reducing coordination costs, fostering green collaborative innovation, and enhancing external scrutiny via social networks. Coercive isomorphism strengthens these effects, while mimetic isomorphism weakens them; impacts are more pronounced in state-owned enterprises, firms with stronger green awareness and higher levels of internationalization, and in more concentrated industries. By operationalizing embedded autonomy theory in an environmental governance context, this research extends theoretical understanding of hybrid governance mechanisms, offers robust empirical evidence for designing policies to curb greenwashing, and provides a replicable framework for achieving corporate environmental sustainability worldwide. Full article

Enhancing the Autonomy and Controllability of green enterprises is crucial for promoting the sustainable development of a green, low-carbon economy. Carbon trading policy has garnered widespread attention across China, offering a novel approach to enhancing the capabilities of Chinese green enterprises. This study aims to explore the impact of carbon trading policies on the Autonomy and Controllability of green enterprises. By introducing the mediating variable of Green ambidextrous innovation, the action mechanism between carbon trading policies and the Autonomy and Controllability of green enterprises is analyzed. In addition, the internal action mechanism of Green ambidextrous innovation is revealed, providing a reference for improving the Autonomy and Controllability of green enterprises and building a global safe and controllable green supply chain. Drawing on data from 126 publicly-listed green companies in China, this study constructs a chain mediation framework based on the logic of “Carbon Trading Policy—Green ambidextrous innovation—Autonomy and Controllability of Green Enterprises.” Utilizing the DID methodology, the analysis explores the impact and mechanisms of the carbon trading policy on green enterprises’ Autonomy and Controllability. The findings indicate that the carbon trading policy significantly enhances the Autonomy and Controllability of green enterprises. Mechanistic analysis reveals that the policy boosts the controllability of green enterprise customers through Green ambidextrous innovation, although its effect is not significant. Additionally, the study identifies internal mechanisms within Green ambidextrous innovation that influence these capabilities. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the carbon trading policy has a particularly pronounced effect on the Autonomy and Controllability of green enterprises in western China and is more impactful for green factories compared to green supply chain enterprises. Full article