Purpose: The presence of asymmetric information exists between firms and the government about the firms' green innovation; this may lead to the firm's moral hazard problem of misusing the government subsidy on the green innovation. Such a problem is not fully considered by the existing literature. The purpose of this study is to explore how government subsidy affects green innovation when the information of firms' innovation cannot be completed observed, and figure out the mechanisms that can alleviate the negative impact of information asymmetry, which helps to explain the factors that motivate the firms to actively engage into the green innovation with the government subsidy.Design/methodology/approach: In a theoretical model under imperfect information in which the firm's activity on green innovation may not be fully observed, the firm could be either altruistic or not; an altruistic firm has stronger incentive to engage into corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities such as green innovation. With the presence of asymmetric information, the authors analyze the possibility of a firm's moral hazard and try to find out the condition on the information quality that can avoid such problem. To examine the results of theoretical analysis, the authors use the data of Chinese listed companies in a corresponding empirical analysis. On the basis of both theoretical and empirical the authors try to figure out the effect of the government subsidy on the green innovation by enterprise and the role of firm's characteristics of social responsibility and information quality in the green innovation with the government subsidy.Findings: The results show that the government subsidy can promote the firm's green innovation, especially for those that are more socially responsible. The asymmetric information, however, leads to inefficiency on the green innovation. This is because that the low-quality information about the firm's behavior raises the possibility of a moral hazard. Moreover, the analyst coverage could be an efficient way to improve the quality of information, alleviating the moral hazard problem of the firm's green innovation. The main contribution is to fill the gap in the study of the government subsidy on green innovation under asymmetric information and to provide the mechanism to improve the efficiency of the subsidy to motivate green innovation by enterprise.Practical implications: A crucial implication to policymakers is to complete and improve the system of information in the market, which can form an efficient incentive compatibility between the enterprises and the public. Such incentive compatibility can attract the enterprises to better use the government subsidy into green innovation and receive a long-run return from the public's positive feedback for their contribution on the social good.Originality/value: Existing studies are concerned about antecedents of green innovation do not completely focus on the relationship between government subsidy and green innovation. The present paper considers that information asymmetry between the government and firms may affect the impact of government subsidy on the firms' green innovation. This conjecture is studied by the theoretical model and verified by an empirical analysis using the data of Chinese listed companies. Additionally, the empirical analysis explores the moderating effect of CSR characteristics of firms, and the analyst coverage can positively affect the promotion of the government subsidy on the firms' green innovation.

With the rapid development of the economy, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is receiving increasing attention from companies themselves, but also increasing attention from society as a whole. How to reasonably evaluate the performance of CSR is a current research hotspot. Existing corporate-social-responsibility evaluation methods mostly focus on the static evaluation of enterprises in the industry, and do not take the time factor into account, which cannot reflect the performance of long-term CSR. On this basis, this article proposes a time-based entropy method that can evaluate long-term changes in CSR. Studies have shown that the completion of CSR in a static state does not necessarily reflect the dynamic and increasing trend of CSR in the long term. Therefore, the assessment of CSR should consider both the static and dynamic aspects of a company. In addition, the research provides the focus of different types of forestry enterprises in fulfilling CSR in the long term, and provides a clearer information path for the standard identification and normative constraints of different types of forestry enterprises CSR.

This paper aims to investigate the motivation for firms to innovate their products to be socially responsible in the presence of the spillover effect. The follower of the innovation in corporate social responsibility (CSR) can benefit from the leader’s innovation by technological spillover. For instance, evidence can be found in the cosmetics industry (e.g. Lush Retail Ltd. and The Body Shop) and the market of hybrid electric vehicles (e.g. Toyota and Honda). Moreover, consumers may have different perceptions on the sequence of CSR innovation by firms, they may prefer more on the CSR product launched by the leader because they usually relate the desired stage to their interests when making a purchase decision. Therefore, the firms’ decision to be a leader of the CSR innovation depends on the trade-off between the loss in the spillover effect and the benefit of the first-mover advantage, which has not been considered by the existing literature. This paper explains the firms’ motivation on CSR innovation in a realistic situation where competing firms’ CSR programs are launched sequentially and sheds light on the private sector’s decision on strategy from the perspective on the social contribution, and provides some managerial implications about the competing firms’ strategies of launching the CSR innovation. The authors construct a two-period Hotelling model in which consumers are divided into two groups: the altruistic and normal consumers. The altruistic consumers have more willingness to pay for the CSR product while the normal consumers only care about the product performance improved by the firms’ CSR activities. Firms have the option to innovate their basic products to be socially responsible and make their decision on such CSR innovation sequentially. Moreover, the follower of the innovation can receive a spillover effect from the leader, meaning that there may exist a second-mover advantage in terms of innovation (the authors define this as a spillover effect), but in the meanwhile, the altruistic consumers value more on the CSR product sold by the leader than that by the follower (the authors define this as a preference-reduction effect). This implies that the firm can benefit in the production process from being a second-mover of the CSR innovation but may lose its first-mover advantage in terms of the preference-reduction effect. By finding and analyzing the sub-game perfect Nash equilibrium, the authors try to figure out the firms’ decisions on CSR innovation in various situations. The authors find that the firms’ motivation of CSR innovation crucially depends on the fraction of the altruistic consumers, as well as the spillover effect and the preference-reduction effect. A large (small) fraction of the altruistic consumers attracts (restricts) both the leader and the follower to engage in CSR innovation. More importantly, when such fraction is not too large but stays at a relatively high level, a potential leader of the CSR innovation may not wish to innovate. Hence, the potential follower may be the monopolist in the market of the socially responsible product. In addition, the authors reexamine this result in a variation model where a leader can make its decision on the CSR innovation to be more flexible by allowing it can innovate in either periods 1 or 2. The authors demonstrate that when the fraction of the altruistic consumers falls in an intermediate range, the leader may wish to delay the CSR innovation to period 2. In such a case, the leader of the CSR innovation may tend to trade its first-mover advantage for head-to-head competition with the follower and prevents the follower from benefiting from the spillover effect. Moreover, a flexible choice on the CSR innovation brings greater initiative to a firm to be the leader of the innovation. Nearly all the studies about firms’ decisions on CSR innovation are conducted in an environment of simultaneous move, which is not appropriate to describe the real business world; many pieces of evidence show that many CSR programs are launched sequentially rather than simultaneously. The theory identifies a couple of important factors of the CSR innovation in a more realistic situation, i.e. sequential more on CSR innovation. Both spillover effect and preference-reduction effect crucially affect the firms’ decision on innovating their products to be socially responsible, which contributes to the existing literature in CSR and strategic decision. This paper also sheds some light on managerial implications with CSR innovation under various situations of competition.

This study investigates the effects of carbon market prices on corporate market competition and green technological innovation in China’s high-carbon industry. We develop a game-theoretic model to analyse the effects of carbon emission restrictions on enterprises and their market competition, measured using the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index. Using data on A-share listed companies in eight major regional carbon markets from 2013 to 2021, the results indicate that rising carbon prices intensify market competition by promoting substantive green technological innovation, which reduces firms’ reliance on carbon emission quotas and enhances their competitive advantage. Furthermore, we identify a threshold effect in which corporate innovation capabilities significantly influence the relationship between carbon prices and market competition. Enterprises with higher innovation capabilities respond more effectively to carbon pricing and increase their investments in green innovation. Heterogeneity tests reveal that the impact of carbon pricing is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises and firms with lower environmental responsibility scores. These findings provide valuable insights into the mechanisms underlying carbon market policies and their role in fostering green economic transitions. The main contributions of this study include the development of a novel game-theoretic model to examine the mechanisms driving these dynamics and identification of a threshold effect of carbon pricing, providing valuable insights into how carbon market policies promote green economic transition.