Digital Transformation and Corporate Greenwashing: Unraveling the Moderating Effects of Environmental Regulation and Market Competition

With the impetus of the "dual carbon" objectives, Chinas capital market has imposed ever - stricter environmental information disclosure requirements. However, a few enterprises still resort to "greenwashing" to deal with regulatory pressures and market expectations. Meanwhile, digital transformation is an essential trend in enterprise development. Based on the panel data of A - share listed companies from 2014 to 2022, this paper delves into the impact of digital transformation on enterprises' "greenwashing" behavior and the underlying mechanisms. The empirical results indicate that digital transformation can significantly mitigate enterprises' "greenwashing" behavior, and this conclusion remains robust after a battery of robustness tests. The mechanism test reveals that environmental regulation and market competition positively moderate the relationship between digital transformation and greenwashing behavior. Moreover, the heterogeneity analysis shows that in state - owned enterprises and those with high financing constraints, digital transformation exerts a more pronounced mitigating effect on "greenwashing" behavior.