TY - JOUR
T1 - Greasing Dirty Machines
T2 - Evidence of Pollution-driven Bribery in China
AU - Zhang, Yanlei
N1 - Epub ahead of print. Published online: 22. October 2019
PY - 2019/10/22
Y1 - 2019/10/22
N2 - Environmental pollution has become a serious challenge in emerging markets. Using a unique survey of privately owned enterprises in China, this paper investigates how polluting firms respond to institutional pressures. We find that polluting firms conform to external pressures by combining relational activities and clean technology investments. However, some polluting firms alleviate regulative pressures by bribing government officials, which represents an unethical relational strategy to manage political relationship. We further analyze the contingency on firm-level political connection and local institutional conditions. Political connection buffers firms from institutional demand and demotivates firms’ willingness to respond to institutional pressures; stronger local civic activism and better bureaucratic governance curb the pollution-driven bribery, but they are not strong enough to enhance environmentally friendly practices. Collectively, our study demonstrates how polluting firms navigate institutional pressures in emerging markets, and it particularly highlights the pollution-driven bribery as an obstacle to sustainability.
AB - Environmental pollution has become a serious challenge in emerging markets. Using a unique survey of privately owned enterprises in China, this paper investigates how polluting firms respond to institutional pressures. We find that polluting firms conform to external pressures by combining relational activities and clean technology investments. However, some polluting firms alleviate regulative pressures by bribing government officials, which represents an unethical relational strategy to manage political relationship. We further analyze the contingency on firm-level political connection and local institutional conditions. Political connection buffers firms from institutional demand and demotivates firms’ willingness to respond to institutional pressures; stronger local civic activism and better bureaucratic governance curb the pollution-driven bribery, but they are not strong enough to enhance environmentally friendly practices. Collectively, our study demonstrates how polluting firms navigate institutional pressures in emerging markets, and it particularly highlights the pollution-driven bribery as an obstacle to sustainability.
KW - Environmental pollution
KW - Institutional pressures
KW - Bribery
KW - Corruption
KW - Emerging markets
KW - Environmental pollution
KW - Institutional pressures
KW - Bribery
KW - Corruption
KW - Emerging markets
UR - https://sfx-45cbs.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/45cbs?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_ctx_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info:sid/sfxit.com:azlist&sfx.ignore_date_threshold=1&rft.object_id=954921376712&rft.object_portfolio_id=&svc.holdings=yes&svc.fulltext=yes
U2 - 10.1007/s10551-019-04301-w
DO - 10.1007/s10551-019-04301-w
M3 - Journal article
JO - Journal of Business Ethics
JF - Journal of Business Ethics
SN - 0167-4544
ER -