Analysis of Voluntary Environmental Behavior and Innovation Quality of Chinese Textile Enterprises Based on Grounded Theory and Propensity Score Matching

At a new stage of “carbon peak” and “carbon neutral,” we need to strengthen the internal impetus of institutions and policies to promote ecological civilization construction. The initiative implementation of voluntary environmental behavior (VEB) is an effective way for enterprises to achieve high quality sustainable development. The VEB of enterprises include but are not limited to compliance with voluntary environmental regulations (VER). Different from the existing literature on enterprise VER, most of which are just the verification of ISO14001, the study conducts a comprehensive exploratory research on the theoretical framework of what is driving the VEB of Chinese textile enterprises. First, based on grounded theory, the paper coded the hand-collected environmental text information of Chinese listed textile enterprises from 2004 to 2018 and constructed a complete theoretical analysis framework from motivation to performance evaluation of enterprise VEB. Second, PSM method is taken to verify the conceptual model. As a result, we find the following: (1) in addition to ISO14001, the textile enterprises involve many industry-specific VER. (2) The VEB and VER of Chinese textile enterprises promote each other. (3) Either following VER or implementing VEB can effectively increase the innovation input and then actively improve the innovation quality of Chinese textile enterprises. In this way, the conclusion not only provides analysis ideas for future empirical research, but also offers practical suggestions to Chinese textile enterprises and policy makers for environmental management.