Topic: Consensus and Strategy: A Perspective on Bank-Enterprise ESG Interactions
The consistency theory states that conscious coupling contributes to the Pareto improvement of information exchange between the two parties, which in turn influences the selection strategy of the subject's behaviour. In recent years, ESG behaviour has shown a tendency to be formally compliant but substantively complex. Most of the existing literature focuses on the demand and supply of ESG from a single-subject perspective, while few studies understand the relationship between bank-enterprise consensus and strategic ESG behaviour in a pre-lending and post-lending context. To this end, this paper examines the impact of pre-loan ESG consensus on post-loan strategic ESG behaviour using bank-enterprise lending data. The results show that the pre-lending ESG consensus can significantly inhibit post-lending ESG "inconsistent" behaviour. The mechanism is that the pre-lending ESG consensus may exert a "funding effect" and a "governance effect" to restrain the strategic ESG behaviour of post-lending companies. The heterogeneity analysis shows that the inhibitory effect of pre-lending ESG consensus on post-lending firms' strategic ESG behaviour varies across ownership attributes, firm's reliance on bank loans and bank size. In addition, the paper also finds that pre-lending ESG consensus effectively reduces post-lending ESG "green" behaviour, while it has little effect on ESG "brown" behaviour. The impact of pre-loan ESG consensus on post-loan strategic ESG behaviour is greater than that of pre-loan token ESG consensus. This study not only provides a new perspective for understanding the strategic ESG behaviour of enterprises in the framework of bank-lending relationships, but also provides a new perspective for regulators to improve ESG information. It also has important implications for regulators to improve the ESG information disclosure system and promote the collaboration between banks and enterprises to help ESG development.
Keynote Speaker: WANG Jiaxin
Wang Jiaxin is an Associate Professor of the School of Accounting at ZUEL, an Associate Professor and the Head of the Postgraduate Supervision Team. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Wuhan Yangtze River National Cultural Park and a consultant of the Hubei Provincial Department of Commerce. His research areas include: audit and practice, financial digitalization, text analysis and machine learning, internal control and economic consequences. Professor Wang was awarded the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in 2018. He has published a number of papers in leading journals such as Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Frontiers in Psychology, Accounting Research, Nankai Business Review, and Auditing Research. His papers have been selected by the annual American Accounting Conference, the European Accounting Conference and the China Journal of Accounting Studies.
Time: Thursday, 20 April 2023, 11:00-12:30
Moderator: LU Yuanping (Executive Director of IIDPF)
Venue: Conference Room 119, Wenqin Building