Abstract: High-quality development of capital is an inherent requirement for promoting Chinese modernization. However, the occurrence of disorderly capital expansion has hindered the optimal allocation of resources and the construction of modernization. Relavant studies mostly focus on the “hard supervision”, such as laws and regulations, and pay insufficient attention to the micro-theoretical logic of disorderly capital expansion. Therefore, this study explores the impact of corporate ESG performance on disorderly capital expansion from the perspective of sustainable development and “soft governance”.
Theoretically, this study establishes a competitive framework of ESG and disorderly capital expansion through media attention, corporate reputation and risk-taking. Besides, based on mergers and acquisitions, a typical form of capital expansion, this study constructs an index of disorderly capital expansion from both process and outcome dimensions. Empirically, it adopts the individual-and-year fixed effect model to explore the relationship between ESG and disorderly capital expansion, and analyzes the three mechanisms mentioned above as well as their relative effects. Finally, the heterogeneity test and the economic consequence analysis are used to deepen the research conclusions.
Results show that corporate ESG performance can inhibit disorderly capital expansion, and such inhibitory effect reflects mainly in the prevention of process risks. The mechanism analysis indicates that ESG performance can exert its inhibitory effect through media attention and corporate reputation channels and the promoting effect through risk-taking channel, with the latter effect being weaker. Further tests find that the inhibitory effect is particularly prominent when the enterprises have private ownership, a high level of digitalization, and a favorable business environment. Such inhibitory effect can ultimately enhance corporate focuses on their core businesses, innovation, resource allocation and supply chain resilience.
This study is a beneficial exploration of disorderly capital expansion, which provides new enlightenment for regulating the transaction behavior of financial market and promoting long-term capital formation. First, the government should continue to strengthen the “hard supervision” while at the same time welcome the active participation of the public and the media in governance. Second, enterprises should build a “soft governance” model to accelerate the promotion of ESG concepts and improve corporate reputation. Finally, enterprises should also strengthen the supervision and governance of managers, and pay attention to the possible overconfidence and aggressive behavior.
This study contributes to the literature in three ways. First, previous studies mainly focused on stock price fluctuations, stock price crashes, stock returns, and market pricing. This study explores the causes of disorderly capital expansion and the “soft governance” model, expanding the consequence studies of ESG. Second, this study reveals the inhibitory effect of media attention and reputation mechanisms as well as the promoting effect of risk-taking mechanism, enriching the theoretical framework of ESG performance and disorderly capital expansion. Third, it constructs a comprehensive index of disorderly capital expansion in the scenario of merger and acquisitions, introduces a new tool to evaluate the expansion order of capital, and provides theoretical and methodological support for future empirical studies.

Key words: ESG, Disorderly Expansion, Media Attention, Corporate Reputation, M&A

摘要： 防范资本无序扩张是推动中国式现代化发展的内在要求。文章以并购重组这一典型的资本扩张形式为观察对象,从过程和结果两个维度构建资本无序扩张指数,研究企业ESG表现对资本无序扩张的影响。结果表明,良好的ESG表现能够抑制企业的资本无序扩张行为,而且这一抑制效应在民营产权、数字化水平较高以及营商环境较好时表现突出。机制分析发现,ESG表现可以通过媒体关注和声誉机制发挥抑制效应。经济后果检验显示,ESG表现对资本无序扩张的抑制会使企业更专注于主业,并激发创新活力,优化资源配置效率,提高企业供应链韧性。文章是对资本无序扩张“软治理”模式的有益探索,为规范金融市场交易行为和促进长期资本形成提供了新的启示。

关键词: ESG, 无序扩张, 媒体关注, 企业声誉, 并购