On What Could Chinese Mining Enterprises Achieve High-Level Environmental Performance?-Based on the fsQCA Method

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Business Management
• Sociology

Background:

• Enterprise environmental performance is complex and influenced by multiple factors.
• Understanding these causal complexities is crucial for sustainable business practices.
• Existing theories like resource dependence, stakeholder, and externality theories provide a foundation for analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify combinations of conditions leading to high enterprise environmental performance.
• To explore the influencing factors and mechanisms of environmental performance in Chinese mining enterprises.
• To establish pathways for improving environmental performance based on identified configurations.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) method.
• Constructed a theoretical framework based on resource dependence theory, stakeholder theory, and externality theory.
• Analyzed data from listed enterprises in the Chinese mining industry (2016-2019).

Main Results:

• Identified four distinct configurations of factors leading to high environmental performance.
• Found that profitability/government regulation and enterprise size/board independence are interchangeable conditions.
• Public attention emerged as a significant factor for Chinese mining enterprises.

Conclusions:

• Proposed three pathways to enhance environmental performance: internally driven, internally-externally driven, and externally driven.
• Highlighted the importance of government supervision, public concern, and internal governance.
• Provided actionable countermeasures for improving corporate environmental responsibility.