Religious Culture and Corporate Environmental Responsibility Performance: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies

Abstract Culture has a profound impact on enterprises’ environmental awareness. As the core of Chinese religious culture, how does Taoism affect the environmental responsibility performance of Chinese enterprises? This study explores the impact of Taoism on the performance of Chinese enterprises’ environmental responsibility from environmental ethics and self-depletion. To answer this question, we conducted an empirical test using a sample of Chinese A-share listed enterprises from 2010 to 2020. The results show that Taoism is beneficial for improving Chinese enterprises’ environmental responsibility performance. In terms of the mechanism, from the macro perspective, Taoism improves the environmental responsibility performance of Chinese enterprises by promoting the development of digital inclusive finance. At the micro level, Taoism promotes the environmental responsibility performance of Chinese enterprises by improving their internal control quality. This may be the first study on the impact of environmental responsibility performance from the perspective of Taoism.