A study of the dual-target corporate environmental behavior (DTCEB) of heavily polluting enterprises under different environment regulations: Green innovation vs. pollutant emissions

Green innovation and pollutant emissions are currently among the hottest topics in corporate environmental behavior (CEB) research. However, a few previous studies have examined these two concepts together at the choice level of CEB. This paper discusses the internal selection logic of CEB by using multinomial logit (MNL) models that consider the choices of enterprises in green innovation and illegal emissions, both across China and separately in different regions. The objective of this paper is to consider the four choices available to heavily polluting enterprises' dual-target corporate environmental behavior (DTCEB), including alienated, conservative, contradictory, and intimate environmental behaviors. The results of this study show that, under various external pressures, 61.2% of heavily polluting enterprises choose conservative environmental behavior. There is also generally a lack of synchronization between the goals of short-term economic and long-term social benefits. At the current stage, environmental regulation measures should focus on guiding enterprises to change from alienated, conservative, and contradictory behaviors, to intimate. Instead of only focusing on monitoring pollution emissions, the government should focus on green innovation guidance to effectively promote the transformation and upgrading of heavily polluting enterprises. A moderate adjustment of the intensity of command regulation may lead to better regulatory effects. Specifically, the enforcement of laws across China should be slowed; efforts should be made to increase the focus of public participation in the eastern region; the importance of incentive-based tax rate preferences should be increased in the central region, and the intensity of legislation should be strengthened in the western region. Compared with the emphasis on environmental performance in other literature, this article uses comparative thinking to explore the choice logic of the DTCEBs, which attaches different degrees of importance to long-term social benefits and short-term economic benefits. (c) 2021 Published by Elsevier Ltd.