The impact of environmental policy on corporate greenwashing behavior from the perspective of multiple institutional logics

Corporate greenwashing behavior has become an obstacle to environmental, economic and social development. Limiting corporate greenwashing through environmental policy and encouraging companies to participate in environmental governance have become effective ways to promote sustainable development. From the perspective of multiple institutional logics, this paper constructs an analytical framework for examining the relationship between environmental policy and corporate greenwashing behavior based on regulation logics, and explores the moderating role of public environmental awareness and performance aspiration gap by identifying ecological community logic and efficiency logic. This paper examines heavily polluting listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share markets. An empirical test was conducted using Stata17.0 software. The results indicate an inverted U-shaped relationship between punitive environmental policy and corporate greenwashing behavior, while incentive environmental policy has a positive impact on corporate greenwashing behavior. Second, public environmental awareness weakens the inverted U-shaped relationship between punitive environmental policy and corporate greenwashing behavior. Third, performance aspiration gap strengthens the positive relationship between incentive environmental policy and corporate greenwashing behavior. This paper suggests that effective implementation of environmental policy is crucial in preventing greenwashing, and external regulation and internal performance concerns are important in supporting the role of environmental policy.