ISO 14001 (Environmental Management Standard) helps corporations to build legitimacy and goodwill, and can be also viewed as an organizational response to institutional pressure to act proactively towards the environment. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how investors in the emerging country value voluntary environmental management standard ISO 14001 certification. The impact of voluntary environmental management standard ISO 14001 on market performance is still not clear. By using event study methodology, this study matched ISO-certified firms with non-certified ones based on three different matching principles that include return on assets, size, and industry. The findings indicated that investors negatively valued ISO 14001 in both the short and long run. The study recommended policy implications for managers, policy makers, and non-government organizations.

The successful internationalization process of Chinese firms which enhances the sustainability of the Chinese economy receives massive research attention. Studies emphasize that firm’s motives and institutional voids play a pivotal role in getting benefits from the internationalization process, but the factors that initiated this process have been overlooked. The objective of this study is to explore the impact of those institutional factors which initiated the internationalization process. This study reveals that institutional factors of cross listing and increased financial availability induced the internationalization process of Chinese firms. Using the financial data of non-financial firms for the period of 2005–2015, we demonstrate that the domestic financial reforms initiated the internationalization process that helps Chinese economies to achieve sustainable economic development. The study also finds that state-ownership helped firms to gain more from increased financial availability than the stand-alone firms. The study concludes that the open business environment helped firms to survive and sustain the international pressure successfully and maintain their sustainable performance.