Search Results (6)

This study aims to examine whether and how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance is related to corporate tax avoidance in a non-linear and threshold-dependent manner using explainable machine learning. Based on 6461 firm-year observations of publicly listed European firms over the 2018–2023 period, this study employs a multi-algorithmic machine-learning classification framework. Model interpretability is achieved through SHAP, which identifies feature importance, marginal effects, interaction patterns, and ESG-related threshold dynamics. The results demonstrate that the ESG–tax relationship is highly non-linear. While the Country and Industry factors establish baseline tax risks, ESG sub-dimensions act as critical firm-level determinants. Specifically, high Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Human Rights scores effectively constrain tax avoidance. In contrast, exceptionally high Management scores correlate with increased tax-avoidance risk. These findings support the legitimacy buffer argument and show that strong governance may also reflect managerial sophistication and capacity for less visible tax planning. The study contributes by revealing non-linear ESG threshold effects and by demonstrating how XAI/SHAP can distinguish between symbolic and substantive sustainability practices in corporate tax behavior. Full article

Environmental supply-chain governance increasingly requires firms to trace climate accountability across buyer–supplier relationships. This study examines whether downstream customer climate pressure is associated with suppliers’ green supply-chain management and value-chain carbon accountability among Chinese listed firms. We construct an exposure-weighted customer pressure measure by combining disclosed top-customer relationships with customer climate-accountability signals, and we decompose this measure into disclosure-based and non-disclosure-based components so that symbolic and substantive accountability can be separated. We then link this measure to supplier green supply-chain indicators, value-chain carbon-disclosure components, Scope 3 disclosure, environmental investment, and reported environmental performance indicators, including air emissions, water pollutant discharge, resource consumption, and environmental tax. Using firm-year panel regressions with fixed effects, alternative pressure measures, selection corrections, and extended outcome tests, we find an association between customer climate pressure and supplier value-chain disclosure. The depth of the association is concentrated where customer carbon-disclosure visibility is observed and is not separately identified in the smaller climate-only subsample, while the value-chain interaction association is positive but imprecisely estimated there. The value-chain disclosure associations are robust to a year-stratified randomization-inference placebo test. We do not find evidence that customer pressure is associated with supplier emissions, resource use, environmental investment, or environmental tax in the available matched samples. The pattern is consistent with symbolic compliance in supply-chain carbon accountability: customer disclosure visibility maps into supplier disclosure visibility, while we do not observe parallel movement in substantive environmental outcomes. The central finding is therefore that downstream customer climate pressure is associated with what suppliers disclose rather than with what they emit, shaping supplier disclosure behavior rather than substantive emission reduction. The estimates apply to supplier-year observations with disclosed and mappable listed-customer links, which we treat as the scope condition of the study rather than as an incidental data limitation. Full article

This study examines how institutional investors adopt and utilize Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) information by integrating the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) with expert-based pairwise comparisons from 20 senior investment professionals at major South Korean financial institutions, we identify and weight key determinants influencing ESG information use among South Korean institutional investors. The results show that performance expectancy emerged as the most influential determinant (33.7%), followed by facilitating conditions (24.6%), social influence (22.8%), and effort expectancy (18.9%). At the sub-criterion level, usefulness for investment decision-making (11.2%), institutional encouragement (10.2%), and utilization of ESG information as a fiduciary duty (9.4%) recorded the highest global weights, whereas psychological comfort in utilizing ESG information (2.0%) and practical guidelines and training programs (3.7%) exhibited the lowest. These findings suggest that ESG adoption has evolved beyond early legitimacy-seeking behavior toward substantive and performance-driven integration, consistent with UTAUT predictions that performance expectancy and facilitating conditions gain salience in mature adoption phases, while effort expectancy and social influence diminish. This weight distribution indicates that ESG has been internalized as core analytical infrastructure informing investment decision-making and risk management, rather than functioning as a peripheral compliance tool. By empirically mapping ESG adoption determinants into a hierarchical structure, this study contributes to the literature on ESG diffusion, institutional investor behavior, and adoption theory, offering practical implications for regulators and financial institutions seeking to deepen substantive ESG integration. Full article

In the international context of pursuing green development, a good connection between the production and consumption ends is a necessary condition for forming a diversified governance interaction system. The academic community has conducted in-depth discussions on green behavior among enterprises and the public. However, few studies have focused on the docking process between the subjects. Therefore, this paper takes Chinese participants as an example to design a game experiment, considering the role of government regulation. From a dynamic, interactive perspective, it explores the motivation for green behavior between the public and enterprises, as well as the effectiveness of government subsidies. The research results indicate that: (i) The public is willing to burden a premium for the green behavior of enterprises, which has significant differences in substantive and symbolic green behavior. (ii) In green consumption scenarios, public purchasing information can be transmitted to enterprises, but the reverse path has not yet been verified. (iii) Government subsidies have a strong incentive effect on public green behavior. (iv) There are significant differences in the impact of public environmental awareness on public green behavior, but there is no significant difference in the green behavior of enterprises. The research conclusion provides theoretical support for the study of public and enterprise behavioral variables and provides a practical basis for enterprise management and government governance. This will facilitate the construction of a systematic and effective environmental governance framework, thereby promoting coordinated green development among entities. Full article

How to promote firms’ environmental management behavior is a concern for academics. In order to explain the reasons why firms’ environmental management behavior exhibits heterogeneity from the institutional perspective, this paper seeks to investigate the relationship between macro-institutional pressures and firms’ environmental management behavior, with the moderating effects of micro-institutional pressures. Firms’ environmental management behavior is classified into substantive environmental management behavior and symbolic environmental management behavior. Macro-institutional pressures typically include environmental regulation, industry imitation, and media attention, while micro-institutional pressures include cognitive focus of executive and cognitive complexity of executive. A sample of 236 groups from 118 listed companies in China’s heavy-polluting industries is employed. It is found that environmental regulation is more likely to promote substantive environmental management behavior, while industry imitation and media attention are more likely to promote symbolic environmental management behavior. Moreover, cognitive focus of executive negatively moderates the relationship between environmental regulation and substantive environmental management behavior and the relationship between media attention and symbolic environmental management behavior. Cognitive complexity of executive positively moderates the relationship between macro-institutional pressures and firms’ environmental management behavior. The findings of this paper clarify the reasons for the heterogeneity of firms’ environmental management behavior from the institutional perspective, which contributes to improving the institutional environment, integrating executive cognition, and promoting firms’ environmental management behavior. Full article

Due to its rich marine biological resources, Taiwan is a place worthy of developing marine ecotourism. This study explores the marine ecotourism intentions and marine ecotourism behaviors of tourists during the COVID-19 pandemic by using the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) method. Under the UTAUT framework, this study considered the factor of environmental attitudes and issued questionnaires in four research areas, namely, Yilan Wushi Fishing Harbor, Port of Hualien, Hualien Stone Stairs Platform, and Taitung Chengfong Fishing Port. In total, 431 effective research samples were collected. First, this study verified the validity and reliability of the dimensions through confirmatory factor analysis. According to the results of structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and environmental attitude all have an influence on tourists’ marine ecotourism intentions, while facilitating conditions had no influences on tourists’ marine ecotourism intentions. Tourists’ marine ecotourism intentions further influenced their marine ecotourism behaviors. In addition, this study evaluated the mediating effect of marine ecotourism intentions by nested-model analysis. Finally, this study provided substantive policy recommendations as a reference for tourism management units and local governments. Full article