Boundary Conditions of the Curvilinear Relationships between Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility and New Product Performance: Evidence from China

Abstract

This study examines whether a firm’s environmental corporate social responsibility advances the growth of its new product performance, and investigates the moderating roles of a firm’s heterogeneous local institutional environment and ownership type. Based on a multi-informant survey dataset of 303 Chinese firms, we found that a firm’s environmental corporate social responsibility has a U-shaped relationship with the firm’s new product performance. In addition, compared with non-state-owned enterprises, state-owned enterprises with a higher environmental corporate social responsibility would receive relatively lower new product performance. Firms located in the provinces with a lower local institutional development level and higher environmental corporate social responsibility may experience relatively higher new product performance than firms located in the provinces with a higher local institutional development level.