The spillover effect of customer annual report tone on supplier ESG decisions

IF 9.8 1区经济学 Q1 BUSINESS, FINANCE

International Review of Financial Analysis Pub Date : 2025-09-24 DOI:10.1016/j.irfa.2025.104665

Xiao Zeng , Yingying Xin , Kai Xiang

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Using a sample of Chinese listed firms, this article examines the association between customers' annual reports tone and suppliers' ESG performance. We find that positive tone information from customers can improve the suppliers' ESG performance. Additionally, we find that customers' annual report tone has a more pronounced effect on suppliers' ESG performance when the economic policy uncertainty is high, poor information acquisition capabilities of suppliers, high quality of customer disclosure, and supplier-customers do not belong to the same business group. Further, the mechanism test indicates the tone of customer annual reports enhances ESG performance by increasing the suppliers' optimistic expectations, financing scale, and green innovation. Collectively, our findings support the conjecture that supplier ESG investment decisions require more information on the development prospects of the supply chain, and customer tone can play an incremental information role in optimizing firm ESG investment decisions.

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客户年报基调对供应商ESG决策的溢出效应

本文以中国上市公司为样本，考察了客户年报基调与供应商ESG绩效之间的关系。我们发现，来自客户的积极语气信息可以改善供应商的ESG绩效。此外，我们发现当经济政策不确定性高、供应商信息获取能力差、客户披露质量高、供应商与客户不属于同一商业集团时，客户年度报告基调对供应商ESG绩效的影响更为显著。进一步，机制检验表明，客户年度报告基调通过提高供应商的乐观预期、融资规模和绿色创新来提高ESG绩效。总体而言，我们的研究结果支持了供应商ESG投资决策需要更多供应链发展前景信息的猜想，而客户语气可以在优化公司ESG投资决策中发挥增量信息作用。

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

International Review of Financial Analysis BUSINESS, FINANCE-

CiteScore

10.30

自引率

9.80%

发文量

366

期刊介绍： The International Review of Financial Analysis (IRFA) is an impartial refereed journal designed to serve as a platform for high-quality financial research. It welcomes a diverse range of financial research topics and maintains an unbiased selection process. While not limited to U.S.-centric subjects, IRFA, as its title suggests, is open to valuable research contributions from around the world.