Joint spousal ownership and corporate green innovation: Empirical evidence from family businesses listed on China's A-shares market

IF 4.2 2区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Economic Modelling Pub Date : 2025-04-11 DOI:10.1016/j.econmod.2025.107107

Liming Hong , Changhong Zhang , Sajid Anwar , Lijie Wang

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Using data on Chinese family businesses spanning 2004 to 2022, this paper investigates the impact of joint spousal ownership on green innovation. The findings indicate that firms with joint spousal ownership exhibit significantly higher levels of green innovation compared to those without such ownership structures. This effect is primarily driven by two mechanisms: increased female executive representation and improved environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. Notably, joint spousal ownership has a more pronounced influence on green innovation than on traditional innovation, suggesting a stronger alignment with proactive environmental policies. Further analysis identifies moderating factors that enhance green innovation, including intergenerational succession planning, harmonious spousal relationships, long-term business goals, a focus on light industry, and limited involvement of other family members. Overall, this paper provides novel empirical evidence on how joint spousal ownership shapes strategic decision-making in family businesses, particularly in the context of sustainable development and global green economic trends.

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配偶共同所有权与企业绿色创新：来自中国a股上市家族企业的经验证据

本文利用2004 - 2022年中国家族企业的数据，考察了夫妻共同所有权对绿色创新的影响。研究结果表明，夫妻共同所有制企业的绿色创新水平显著高于非夫妻共同所有制企业。这种效应主要由两种机制驱动：女性高管比例的增加和环境、社会和治理（ESG）绩效的改善。值得注意的是，夫妻共同所有权对绿色创新的影响比对传统创新的影响更明显，这表明与积极的环境政策有更强的一致性。进一步分析确定了促进绿色创新的调节因素，包括代际继承计划、和谐的配偶关系、长期商业目标、对轻工业的关注以及其他家庭成员的有限参与。总体而言，本文为夫妻共同所有权如何影响家族企业的战略决策提供了新的实证证据，特别是在可持续发展和全球绿色经济趋势的背景下。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Economic Modelling ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

8.00

自引率

10.60%

发文量

295

期刊介绍： Economic Modelling fills a major gap in the economics literature, providing a single source of both theoretical and applied papers on economic modelling. The journal prime objective is to provide an international review of the state-of-the-art in economic modelling. Economic Modelling publishes the complete versions of many large-scale models of industrially advanced economies which have been developed for policy analysis. Examples are the Bank of England Model and the US Federal Reserve Board Model which had hitherto been unpublished. As individual models are revised and updated, the journal publishes subsequent papers dealing with these revisions, so keeping its readers as up to date as possible.