Environmental, Social and Governance Performance of Chinese Multinationals: A Comparison of State- and Non-State-Owned Enterprises

• Main Authors: Fahad Khalid, Juncheng Sun, Guanhua Huang, Chih-Yi Su
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-04-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: internationalization; environmental; social and governance performance; sustainability; multinationals; SOEs and non-SOEs
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/7/4020

The purpose of this research is to empirically investigate the effect of internationalization on the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and non-SOEs. The study employed an updated panel dataset (6238 firm-year observations) of Chinese multinationals from the period 2010–2019. The initial findings of the study reveal that Chinese multinationals perform better in terms of environmental and governance scores. It suggests that international market forces deal with enhancing ecological problems and concerns of stakeholders. However, results are insignificant when the social performance of multinationals is analyzed. On the other hand, multinational non-SOEs outperformed their counterparts in terms of environmental and governance performance. The findings of the paper are robust regarding the use of proxies of internationalization and endogeneities.