The Impact of ESG Performance on Collaborative Innovation

Abstract

In recent years, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors, serving as crucial non-financial indicators for measuring corporate sustainable development, have garnered increasing attention. Driven by China's new development philosophy, significant progress has been made in ESG-related policies, disclosure, and investment, aiding enterprises in enhancing their governance standards. As stakeholders place growing emphasis on corporate ESG performance, firms are incentivized to strengthen disclosure to improve their ability to acquire resources. Existing research predominantly focuses on the impact of ESG on financial performance and similar outcomes. This study pioneers an investigation from the perspective of collaborative relationships, thereby expanding the field of ESG research with both theoretical and practical significance. Based on reputation theory, information asymmetry theory, and others, this paper utilizes a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2011 to 2020. Combining Bloomberg ESG ratings, CNRDS patent data, and CSMAR financial data, a two-way fixed effects model is constructed to empirically analyze the impact of corporate ESG performance on the quantity and quality of collaborative innovation output. Robustness is tested using variable substitution methods. The findings are as follows: (1) Corporate ESG performance significantly enhances both the quantity and quality of collaborative innovation output; (2) This effect is more pronounced in non-high-pollution industries and large enterprises.