SHS Web of Conferences 169, 01063 (2023) https://doi.org/10.

1051/shsconf/202316901063
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Substantial Innovation or Strategic Innovation: The Influence of

ESG Performance on Corporate Innovation Strategy
Xiuping Liu *
Jinan University, Guangzhou City, 510632 Guangdong Province, China

Abstract: The effectiveness of ESG performance in promoting corporate innovation has been widely
demonstrated. However, a significant research gap remains unexplored that prior scholars have neglected the
research into the influence of ESG performance on corporate innovation strategy. Using the sample of China's
A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2020, this paper analyzes the influence of ESG performance on
corporate innovation strategy. It is found that ESG performance can promote substantial innovation and
strategic innovation in different degrees. Further analyses show that ESG performance can promote
substantial innovation more than strategic one. Therefore, while pursuing upgrading and transformation,
corporations should pay more attention to the influence of ESG performance on innovation strategies, and
promote a virtuous circle of long-term development of corporations.

Keywords: ESG performance; substantial innovation; strategic innovation.

1. Introduction 2019). However, few literatures study the strategy of

With the occurrence and spread of the COVID-19
epidemic, the global economic growth rate continues to
slow down, and with the problems of extremely
changeable climate, intensified greenhouse effect and
tight energy supply, promoting energy conservation and
emission reduction and achieving the goal of sustainable
development has become the key point of global attention.
Countries and related organizations around the world
have promulgated a number of standards, such as the Paris
Agreement in 2015, which made it mandatory for
participating countries to decarbonize. In September 2020,
China clearly put forward the goal of "achieving peak
carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon
neutrality by 2060" (referred to as the "double-carbon
goal" for short). More and more corporations are pursuing
their own low-carbon development, and ESG has become
the consensus under the demands of global economic
green transformation, emission reduction and carbon
reduction, and new energy development.
Therefore, to meet the increasingly strict regulatory
requirements and reflect the needs of the times of
sustainable development, corporations should disclose
their non-financial statements (namely ESG information
disclosure) according to the requirements of relevant
departments in addition to the traditional financial
statements. With regard to the influence of ESG
performance on corporate innovation, the existing
literatures have reached a consensus conclusion: the
improvement of corporate ESG performance will promote
corporate innovation (Pavelin et al.2008; Huang et al.
*
Corresponding author: 371249934@qq.com
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
corporate innovation from ESG performance. Corporate
innovation strategies are divided into two types (Li et
al.2016): The first one, the "high-quality" innovation
behavior, is to promote the technological progress and
gaining competitive advantage,which is called substantial
innovation (for example, invention patents); The second
is to cater to the policy or supervision by pursuing the
"quantity" and "speed" of innovation, which is called
strategic innovation (such as utility model and design
patent).Innovation has promoted industrial and
technological upgrading (Lin, 2002). Therefore, it is of
great practical and policy significance to examine the
promotion effect of ESG performance from the
perspective of innovation strategies, to improve the social
responsibility disclosure system of listed companies, to
promote the innovation and upgrading of corporations,
and to make scientific use of innovation drivers to achieve
the goal of sustainable and healthy development.
Based on the data of China's A-share listed companies
from 2007 to 2020, this paper examines the influence of
ESG performance on corporate innovation strategies. The
main contributions of this paper are as follows: (1) On the
theoretical level, it enriches the literature on how ESG
performance affects corporate innovation strategies.
Based on the data of listed companies in China, this paper
empirically tests the mechanism that ESG performance
can promote substantial innovation and strategic
innovation to varying degrees. In further analysis, the
research of this paper shows that the better performance
of ESG, the more it tends to substantial innovation, rather
than strategic innovation. Therefore, improving the ESG
SHS Web of Conferences 169, 01063 (2023)
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performance can lay a solid foundation for corporations to
gain competitive advantage. (2) On the practical level, it
enriches the exploration of how ESG performance can
improve enterprise value. The increase of invention patent
applications can improve the market value of corporations,
and substantial innovation can promote the development
of corporations. This paper deepens the recognition of the
company's value creation function by corporate ESG
performance, and also provides empirical evidence
support for listed companies to attach importance to and
improve ESG performance and enhance their substantial
innovation ability.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows.
Section 2 provides the literature review and research
hypotheses; Section 3 presents the research design;
Section 4 puts forward analysis of empirical results;and
Section 5 presents the conclusions.
2. Literature Review and Research
Hypothesis
2.1 The Influence of ESG Performance on
Substantial Innovation
In the fierce market competition, in order to win market
share, corporations tend to invest resources in substantial
innovation activities (not strategic innovation activities),
and then bring technological progress and competitive
advantage, and finally get rich returns.
Compared with traditional investment activities,
substantial innovation activities have higher investment
risks (such as large investment, high risk, long cycle and
other challenges), which makes corporations often face
financing constraints, which leads to insufficient capital
investment and limited innovation activities. On the one
hand, different from general investment, projects with
substantial innovation investment require higher risk
premium than general investment. On the other hand,
information asymmetry and moral hazard between
internal managers and external investors will further
increase the cost of external financing.
However, better ESG performance reduces the degree of
information asymmetry with investors, helps corporations
win the recognition and support of stakeholders in
substantial innovation activities, alleviates investors'
market doubts caused by poor access to information,
reduces the cost and resistance of corporations in the
financing process, and ensures the stability of capital
chain of substantial innovation activities.
To sum up, that better ESG performance improves
financing constraints provides financial support for
substantial innovation activities, and corporations tend to
make substantial innovation.
Based on the above analysis, this paper proposes
Hypothesis 1.
Hypothesis 1: Better ESG performance boosts substantial
innovation.
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https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/202316901063
2.2 The Influence of ESG Performance on
Strategic Innovation
According to the principle of cost-benefit, business
operators are rational economic men, and they will weigh
the income and cost of any investment activity. When the
income is greater than the cost, they will have the
motivation to choose the scheme, otherwise, they will
give up the choice.
The uncertainty of innovation itself is not only the
characteristic that managers focus on when making
internal investment, but also the investors pay special
attention to corporate risks when investing in corporations.
Simply put, substantial innovation has the characteristics
of large investment, long time, and extremely uncertain
output, while strategic innovation-expected to bring
government subsidies or tax incentives-has the
characteristics of low investment, short time, and fast
output. Rational operators are often more willing to carry
out strategic innovation because they are afraid that
corporations will take risks and lose their own benefits.
This means that the "innovation" of an corporation is only
a strategy of the management, and it tends to pursue
innovation only "speed" and "quantity" while ignoring
"quality" to whitewash the superficial innovation ability.
To sum up, that better ESG performance meets the needs
of policy and supervision will be the primary
consideration of innovation strategy, and corporations
tend to innovate strategically.
Based on the above analysis, this paper proposes
Hypothesis 2.
Hypothesis 2: Better ESG performance boosts strategic
innovation.
3. Research Design
3.1 Sample Selection and Data Source
In this paper, China's A-share listed companies from 2007
to 2020 are selected as the research samples, deleting ESG
rating data which are missing and corporations whose
total operating income is less than zero. So, the final
sample has 31,641 observations. The data sources of this
paper are as follow: (1) Financial, financing constraints,
patents and other data related to corporate operations are
all from the CSMAR database; (2) ESG rating data is from
Huazheng ESG database. To eliminate the influence of
outliers on the model results, the main continuous
variables are winsorized at the 1% and 99% levels.
3.2 Variables
3.2.1 Independent Variable
ESG Performance.The ESG rating data of this paper
comes from Wind Huazheng ESG database, which is
developed by Huazheng Index Information Service
Company and is suitable for ESG database of A-share
listed companies in China at present. The database now
covers all A-share listed companies. In this paper, the
ESG data of C-level companies is given 1 point, CC-level
companies is given 2 points, CCC-level companies is
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given 3 points, and so on. The ESG performance scores is Table 1. Variable definition.
1-9 points, with 1 point indicating that the ESG
performance of listed companies is poor, and 9 points Symb
Variable Description
indicating that ESG performance is better. ol
R&D
investment RD1=(Amount of R&D
RD1
3.2.2 Dependent Variables investment)/(total assets)
（1）
Corporate innovation ability.Scholars at home and abroad R&D
RD2=log(1+Amount of R&D
generally use innovation input and innovation output to investment RD2
investment)
measure corporate innovation ability. The measurement （2）
of innovation investment generally adopts R&D PAT=log(the sum of the
Innovation
expenditure (Hu et al. 2019); Innovation output is PAT number of patent
output
generally measured by the number of patent applications applications + 1)
(Quan et al. 2017) and the output value of new products IPAT=log(the sum of the
Invention
(Chen et al. 2019). In this paper, the number of patent IPAT number of invention patent
output
applications (including invention patents, utility model applications + 1)
patents and design patents) is used to measure the UDPAT=log(the sum of the
Output of
innovation ability of corporations. Robustness test UDP number of utilitymodel and
utility model
adopted R&D expenditure replacement. AT design patent applications+
and design
Innovation strategy of corporations.Innovation 1)
substantially promotes technological progress, which The score is assigned as 1~9,
belongs to high-tech innovation; However, strategic ESG from low to high, according
ESG
innovation is only to cater to government policies, performance to esg rating data of
generally only small and low-tech innovations are needed. huazheng
In view of this, based on the discussion of the definition Firm Size Size Size=ln(total assets)
of China's patent law and the existing research literature Net Fixed PPE=(Net Fixed
(Tan et al. 2014; Tong et al. 2014), we regard the PPE
Assets Assets)/(total assets)
application of "high-quality" invention patents as Cash flow Cfo=(Net cash flow from
substantial innovation, and the application of utility model from Cfo operating activities)/(total
patents and design patents as strategic innovation. In this operations assets)
paper, the total number of invention patents of an Lev=(Total Liabilities)/(total
corporation is increased by 1, and then the natural Debt ratio Lev
assets)
logarithm is taken to measure the substantial innovation Indep=(Number of
ability of the corporation; The total number of utility Independent Independent
model patents and design patents is increased by 1, and Indep
director ratio directors)/(Number of board
then the natural logarithm is taken to measure the strategic directors)
innovation ability of the corporation. Boar Board=ln(Number of board
Board size
d directors)
3.2.3 Control Variables Herfindahl-
Hirschman HHI HHI= HHI[top(5)]
To more accurately explore the influence of ESG Index
performance on corporate innovation strategy, this paper Dummy variable, 1 for the
uses the practice of Li Jinglin (2021) for reference to chairman who serves as the
CEO duality Dual
control other variables that may affect corporate general manager, otherwise it
innovation, including: corporate R&D investment is 0
(RD1,RD2), corporate model (Size), fixed capital- Year Year The year fixed effects
production ratio (PPE), cash flow ratio of operating Industry classification name
activities (Cfo), negative debt ratio of capital - production of CSRC in 2012
(Lev), ratio of independent directors (LEV). In addition, Indus Take the first two digits when
Industry
the industry variable (Industry) and annual variable (Year) try
C is its' name，otherwith
are also controlled. See Table 1 for specific variable take the first digit.
definitions.

3.3 Empirical Model

In this paper, regression Model (1) is set to test the
influence of ESG performance on corporate innovation
strategy, thus testing Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2. The
specific regression model is as follows:
Innovation=β0ESG+β1Controls+Year FE+Industry
FE+e (1)

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where Innovation represents Innovation output,and ESG 4.2 Analysis of Multiple Regression Results
represents the ESG rating obtained by enterprise.β0 and β1
are the coefficient value,and Controls is the control
4.2.1 ESG Performance and R&D Investment
variable ,and e is the residual value. The regression
models of this paper control the time fixed effect and Table 3 and Table 4 report the regression results for the
industry fixed effect, where the industry is set according ESG performance and corporate innovation. To avoid the
to the 2012 industry classification standard of the China impact of the heteroscedasticity of disturbance items on
Securities Regulatory Commission. To control the the empirical results, this paper uses a firm-level
influence of the heteroscedasticity of the error term and clustering robust standard error. Table 3 controls the
time-series-related problems on the standard error of the industry fixed effect and time fixed effect, while Table 4
estimation coefficient, this paper’s robustness test adopts adds other control variables that may affect the innovation
R&D expenditure replacement. level of corporations.
The results show that ESG performance has a significant
4. Analysis of Empirical Results positive impact on R&D investment. Column (1) of Table
4 shows that when other variables are controlled and
innovation input (RD1) is used as the dependent variable,
4.1 Descriptive Statistics the coefficient on ESG is 0.001 and is significantly
The descriptive statistical results in Table 2 show that the positive at the 1% level. After adding control variables,
average and maximum of R&D investment level (RD1) of controlling the annual and industry effects, the adjusted
the sampled corporations is 0.017 and 0.095 respectively, R2 gradually increased to 0.378, which indicates that this
and the standard deviation is 0.019, which indicates that model has more suitable goodness of fit.
the differences of R&D investment levels among
corporations is small. The average and maximum of Table 3. Results of baseline regression
corporate innovation (PAT) are 0.559 and 4.787
(1) (2) (3) (4)
respectively, and the standard deviation is 1.188, which RD1 IPAT UDPAT PAT
shows that there is a big difference in corporate ESG 0.001*** 0.055*** 0.001 0.050***
innovation among sample corporations. The average and -8.85 -12.1 -0.25 -8.2
maximum of ESG scores of corporations are 6.440 and Controls NO NO NO NO
9.000 respectively, and the standard deviation is 1.108, Year YES YES NO YES
which indicates that there is a big difference in ESG Industry YES YES NO YES
performance among corporations. The average and N 31641 31641 31641 31641
maximum of financing constraints (KZ) is 1.011 and Adj R2 0.352 0.058 0.048 0.068
6.463 respectively, and the standard deviation is 2.192, Note: *, **, and *** are, respectively, the significant
which indicates that financing constraints among levels at 10%, 5%, and 1%; t statistics in parentheses.
corporations are quite different. Except for corporate scale,
Table 4. Results of baseline regression (adding other control
financing constraints and ratio of independent directors, variables)
the standard deviation of other control variables are less
than 1, and the fluctuation range is small, indicating that (1) (2) (3) (4)
the data is stable. RD1 IPA UDPAT PAT
ESG 0.001*** 0.035*** 0.017*** 0.044***
Table 2. Descriptive statistical results of variables -14.3 -7.61 -3.28 -6.92
Size -0.001*** 0.042*** -0.035*** 0.012**
(-19.02) -9.29 (-8.16) -2.01
Variable N Mean SD Min Max PPE -0.012*** -0.318*** -0.141*** -0.372***
RD1 31,641 0.017 0.019 0.000 0.095 (-18.79) (-10.41) (-4.12) (-8.81)
Cfo 0.014*** 0.130*** 0.171*** 0.212***
RD2 31,641 13.639 7.565 0.000 21.459 -3.93 -2.94 -3.75 -3.53
PAT 31,641 0.559 1.188 0.000 4.787 Lev -0.000** -0.006 -0.012** -0.014*
(-2.47) (-1.60) (-2.30) (-1.96)
IPAT 31,641 0.354 0.848 0.000 3.951 Indep 0.003* 0.371*** -0.147 0.296**
UDPAT 31,641 0.350 0.961 0.000 4.357 -1.75 -3.37 (-1.36) -2.06
Board 0 0.102*** -0.059** 0.058
ESG 31,641 6.440 1.108 1.000 9.000 -0.86 -3.59 (-2.01) -1.52
HHI 0.004 0.02 -0.124 -0.076
Size 31,641 22.082 1.353 13.763 28.636
-1.31 -0.21 (-1.14) (-0.58)
PPE 31,641 0.215 0.166 0.000 0.971 Dual 0.002*** -0.005 0.062*** 0.046***
Cfo 31,641 0.044 0.105 -10.216 2.222 -9.37 (-0.48) -4.76 -2.99
Constant 0.019*** -1.400*** 0.836*** -0.669***
Lev 31,641 0.451 1.197 -0.195 178.346 -8.77 (-10.93) -7.39 (-4.10)
Indep 31,641 0.375 0.056 0.000 1.000 Year YES YES YES YES
Industry YES YES YES YES
Board 31,641 2.132 0.202 0.693 2.890 N 31641 31641 31641 31641
HHI 31,641 0.282 0.104 0.202 0.843 Adj R2 0.378 0.065 0.053 0.07
Dual 31,641 0.271 0.444 0.000 1.000 Note: *, **, and *** are, respectively, the significant
levels at 10%, 5%, and 1%; t statistics in parentheses.
KZ 31,641 1.011 2.192 -5.740 6.463

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4.2.2 ESG Performance and Corporate -10.33 (-15.62) (-8.75) (-2.24) (-6.55)
-
Innovation Strategy Cfo 9.283**
0.007**
-0.061 -0.073 -0.135
*
*
In addition, Table 4 also reports the regression results for (-3.39) -3.39 (-1.52) (-1.13) (-1.55)
ESG performance and corporate innovation strategy. -
- -
Taking Column (2) as an example, the coefficient of ESG Lev 0.203*
0.000**
-0.001 0.006**
0.006**
is 0.035, which is significantly positive at the level of 1%, *
-1.76 (-2.33) (-1.09) (-2.89) (-2.14)
indicating that ESG performance significantly exerts a 0.613** 0.377**
huge positive influence on substantial innovation Indep 0.003* -0.131 0.316**
* *
(Invention output).After adding control variables, -3.1 -1.76 -3.45 (-1.21) -2.21
controlling the annual and industrial effects, the adjusted 0.102** -
Board 0.041 0 0.06
* 0.058**
R2 gradually increased to 0.065 , which indicates that this -0.7 -0.71 -3.61 (-1.97) -1.56
model has more suitable goodness of fit. Hypothesis 1 is -
verified. HHI 1.478** 0.003 -0.012 -0.163 -0.132
Column (3) shows that the coefficient of ESG is 0.017, *
(-5.70) -0.99 (-0.13) (-1.50) (-1.00)
which is significantly positive at the level of 1%, -
indicating that ESG performance can significantly 0.002** 0.054**
Dual 0.299** -0.011 0.035**
* *
promote strategic innovation (Output of utility model and *
design).After adding control variables, controlling the (-11.57) -8.15 (-1.04) -4.15 -2.27
- -
annual and industrial effects, the adjusted R2 gradually Consta
0.653**
0.020**
1.370**
0.856**
0.635**
increased to 0.053, which indicates that this model has nt * *
* *
more suitable goodness of fit. Hypothesis 2 is verified. -2.48 -9.65 (-10.75) -7.6 (-3.91)
Year YES YES YES YES YES
Industr
YES YES YES YES YES
4.2.3 Test of the Mediating Role of Financing y
N 31641 31641 31641 31641 31641
Constraints Adj R2 0.376 0.393 0.066 0.055 0.073
As is depicted in Table 5 that the mediation effect of Note: *, **, and *** are, respectively, the significant
financing constraints (FC) is established, that is, better levels at 10%, 5%, and 1%; t statistics in parentheses.
ESG performance can promote corporations to increase All in all,FC have less inhibitory effect on substantial
R&D investment and innovative behavior by easing innovation than strategic innovation, while ESG
FC.Columns (1) of Table 5 reports the empirical results of performance promotes substantial innovation more than
the enterprise FC measured by the FC index as strategic innovation.
intermediary variables. The results listed in Column (1)
show that in the regression of ESG to FC, the ESG 4.3 Robustness Tests
coefficient is -0.222, which is significantly negative at the
1% level, indicating a significant negative correlation
between the ESG performance and the financing 4.3.1 Measurement Method for Replacing
constraints and indicating that the better ESG Dependent Variables
performance of corporations can reduce financing costs, In this paper, that the natural logarithm of the sum amount
reduce the degree of information asymmetry and alleviate of R&D investment and 1 (RD2) is used to replace
the financing constraints faced by corporations. dependent variables, and the influence of ESG
In Column (2),(3),(4)and(5),the regression coefficient of performance on R&D investment is further examined. As
FC on R&D investment, substantial innovation and shown in Columns (1) of Table 6, the regression
strategic innovation is significantly negative at the level coefficient of corporate ESG performance is significantly
of 1%, which indicates that financing constraints have a positive at 1%.
restraining effect on these three factors.
Table 6. Results of robustness testing and endogenous testing
Table 5. Results of the mediating role of financial constraints

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (1)

KZ RD1 IPAT UDPAT PAT RD2
-
ESG 0.222**
0.001** 0.030**
0.011**
0.035** ESG 0.328***
* * *
* -10.29
(-10.31) -12.39 -6.54 -2.12 -5.55
- - - - Size 0.878***
KZ 0.001** 0.021** 0.026** 0.037** -27.6
* * * *
(-10.30) (-8.40) (-8.45) (-9.82) PPE -4.037***
- - (-15.53)
0.126** 0.044** 0.016**
Size 0.001** 0.031**
* * * Cfo 2.295***
* *
-10.89 (-18.33) -9.84 (-7.50) -2.77
- - -
-4.9
2.394** - Lev
PPE
*
0.010** 0.268**
0.077**
0.282** -0.145**
* * *

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(-2.50) 0.014
Cfo
Indep -0.078 *** 0.105*** 0.142*** 0.167***
(-0.11) -3.47 -2.58 -3.5 -3.19
-
Board 0.156
Lev 0.002
-0.77 ** -0.033* -0.045** -0.061**
HHI 5.171*** (-
-7.62 2.08) (-1.82) (-2.29) (-2.02)
Dual 0.637*** 0.004
Indep
* 0.534*** -0.103 0.455***
-9.49
-1.96 -4.39 (-0.86) -2.86
Constant -18.307***
Board 0.001 0.127*** -0.032 0.096**
(-20.88)
Year YES -1.21 -4.07 (-1.00) -2.29
Industry YES HHI 0.004 -0.001 -0.139 -0.148
N 31641 -1.18 (-0.01) (-1.12) (-1.00)
Adj R2 0.002
0.481 Dual
*** -0.013 0.074*** 0.044***
Note: *, **, and *** are, respectively, the significant
levels at 10%, 5%, and 1%; t statistics in parentheses. -8.75 (-1.07) -5.11 -2.58
Const 0.017 - -
ant *** 1.575*** 0.807*** 0.833***
4.3.2 Lag Effect of Dependent Variables
-7.17 (-10.99) -6.36 (-4.57)
In this paper, the independent variable (ESG) and Year YES YES YES YES
dependent variables(IPAT, UDPAT,PAT)lag by one Indust
period to alleviate the two-way causality problem. The YES YES YES YES
ry
results listed in Columns (2) and (4) of Table 7 show that N 27080 27080 27080 27080
the coefficients of the independent variable (ESG_Next)
Adj
lagging behind one period are 0.018 and0.021, which are
R2 0.376 0.064 0.05 0.069
significantly positive at the level of 5%, and the result of
the basic regression is robust. Note: *, **, and *** are, respectively, the significant
These results show that the ESG performance will levels at 10%, 5%, and 1%; t statistics in parentheses.
promotes substantial innovation more than strategic
innovation next year, and the coefficients lagging by one 5. Conclusions
year are significant, indicating that innovation strategy
needs time to adjust and lags, which is also consistent with ESG has become the consensus under the demands of
hypothesis 1. It can be concluded that the result of the global economic green transformation, emission
basic regression is robust. reduction and carbon reduction, and new energy
development. In this context, this paper, taking China’s
Table 7. Results of lag effect of dependent variables A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2020 as an
example, applied linear regressions with panel data. The
(1) (2) (3) (4) results show that ESG performance can promote
RD1_ IPAT_Ne UDPAT_ PAT_Ne substantial innovation and strategic innovation to varying
Next xt Next xt degrees. Furthermore, FC have less inhibitory effect on
0.001 substantial innovation than strategic innovation, while
ESG
*** 0.024*** 0.018** 0.033*** ESG performance promotes substantial innovation more
-3.7 -3.12 -2.14 -3.1 than strategic innovation.
ESG_ 0.001 In view of the above conclusions, this paper puts forward
Next *** 0.018** 0.004 0.021** the following suggestions: Firstly, to gain competitive
advantage and lay a solid foundation for further
-5.88 -2.5 -0.54 -2.11
development, improving ESG performance is one of the
-
ways. In the fierce market competition, corporations gain
Size 0.001
market share through the competitive advantages brought
*** 0.045*** -0.037*** 0.014**
by technological progress and substantial innovation, and
(-
finally get rich returns. Better ESG performance
13.95) -8.74 (-7.69) -2.07
effectively alleviates financing constraints to obtain
-
sufficient R&D funding support, enhances its competitive
PPE 0.012 - -
advantage and promotes its high-quality development.
*** 0.327*** -0.108*** 0.353***
Secondly, thanks to the active innovation policies such as
(-
mass entrepreneurship and innovation, the scientific
16.99) (-9.64) (-2.92) (-7.64)
research and technical service industry has developed

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sustainability of corporate innovation [J]. Economic
strong policy assistance to individual industries, thus
Research, 2013,48(01):4-16.
promoting the high-quality development of Chinese
corporations. 9. Li Wenjing, Zheng Manni. Substantive innovation or
This study has some limitations, which will require strategic innovation? — — The impact of macro-
further research in the future. industrial policies on micro-corporate innovation [J].
First, the subject of this research was only China's A-share Economic Research, 2016,51(04):60-73.
listed companies. Future research may choose a wide 10. Du Yonghong. ESG audit research under the
range of topics from other fields to study. Secondly, China constraint of "double carbon" target [J]. Journal of
is an emerging country, so future researchers can compare Harbin Institute of Technology (Social Science
the results with those of developed countries. Finally, Edition), 2022,24 (02): 154-160. doi:
future researchers can modify the model to take into 10.16822/j.cnki.hits KB.2022.02.012.
account the current epidemic situation, and empirically
test the impact of COVID-19 on the influence of ESG
performance on corporate innovation strategy.
Through further analysis of the industry, it is confirmed
that the influence of ESG performance on corporate
innovation strategy may be influenced by industry
attributes. ESG performance ,R&D investment,financing
constraints and corporate innovation have no significant
relationship with the industry of agriculture, forestry,
animal husbandry and fishery,which is a basic industry
that needs to follow the objective laws of natural growth
and development. Because the technical content is
relatively low, the input cost is high, high financial
support is needed, and there is no guarantee of market in
a short time. The innovation of this industry is mainly
promoted by the state rather than by market.

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