The Impact of Consumer Environmental Preferences on the Green Technological Innovation of Chinese Listed Companies

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the opportunity to review the Manuscript “Can consumer environmental preferences promote firms' green technological innovation? Evidence from Chinese listed Companies of Heavily Polluting Industries”. This paper attempts to raise the following questions about an influence of consumer environmental preferences on green technology innovation in heavily polluting firms and the influence mechanism. I think It is an interesting paper. Following are my comments.

Introduction:

The authors correctly noted that the topic of environmental preferences is widely discussed. But the authors not provided a fairly detailed overview on this issue.

Theoretical background and research hypotheses:

The literature review is well organized. It is based mainly on environmental preferences consumer, stakeholder theory, and signal theory, mainly from local Chinese literature. Add works from international journals to show an international review and DOI. It is difficult for reviewers to check the local literature.

Methods:

The methods are appropriate and very clear. Add hypothesis notation 1-1 to fig. 1.

Line 323 – Add links on the Cathay Pacific with data.

Results:

 The result and discussion section are very much disorganized. The authors should clearly state which studies are in line with their findings and which contradicts.

It is unclear how many enterprises were evaluated. What criteria show that these enterprises are highly polluting the environment. Give more description. Table 8 shows 6 types of enterprises from small to large. It is unclear why. It is obvious that large enterprises pollute the environment more than small and medium-sized ones.

Conclusion and implications:

Provide managerial, theoretical and research implications.

Enhance the conclusion section in line with the research questions.

Include more limitations and future research directions.

References:

The list of references mainly includes works by Chinese scientists. Add the works of scientists from other countries included in international databases. The articles do not have DOI listed in the list of references. There is not enough work for 2022-2023.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

‘consumer’ – for style consistency, write it with initial capitalization in the manuscript title. ‘Climate change and environmental pollution are recognized as major challenges to the world sustainable development’ – clarify the challenges. ‘Mahmood S B et al., 2023’ – unusual citation style. ‘In recent years, China has taken the construction of ecological civilization as a fundamental plan to achieve sustainable development. Guided by this plan, Chinese government has made great efforts to transform the economic development model from extensive growth to intensive growth, because economic growth heavily relied on natural resources has inevitably led to severe environmental pollution.’ – needs substantiation. ‘According to the annual consumer trend survey conducted by Zhimeng, 73.8% of consumers will give priority to green and environmentally friendly products or brands in their daily lives. Meanwhile, another 30.6% of consumers said that green products have improved their quality of life.’ – cite sources not as footnotes, that are quite unusual nowadays in science anyway. ‘According to the theory of Revealed Preference, consumers' purchasing behavior reveals their intrinsic preference tendencies.’ – source for this theory? ‘the increase in green consumption indicates that the degree of consumers' environmental preference is gradually increasing.’ – needs substantiation. In fact, massive portions of the text lack any sources. E.g., ‘At the same time, increased consumption of green products and rising market demand will affect the production activities of enterprises. Enterprises may increase green R&D investment, improve production technology and produce more green products in order to increase market share for more profits. So, can consumer environmental preferences promote green innovation in enterprises? Enterprises are practitioners in achieving green and high-quality development, and green innovation is the driving force to promote green development of enterprises. However, green innovation is characterized by large capital investment, long R&D cycle and high uncertainty, which makes enterprises, especially traditional heavy polluters, often prone to difficulties in green innovation. In order to promote green innovation of heavy polluters, government has introduced a series of environmental regulation and financial subsidy policies, but to truly stimulate the willingness of enterprises to green innovation, the consumer market is more important than government support.’ ‘Based on the above analyses, this paper attempts to raise and address the following questions: does an increase in the degree of consumer environmental preference promote green technology innovation in heavily polluting firms? What is the influence mechanism? Can the increase of environmental preference achieve the effect of promoting green innovation by increasing the R&D investment of enterprises?’ – analyses and research papers are based on no supporting sources. ‘but also bring many ecological problems such as resource constraints, serious pollution’ – poorly constructed. ‘preferences(Kikuchi-Uehara E et al.,2016;Wu X et al.,2020;Nico L et al.,2023)’ – poorly edited and the mentioned sources are not debated upon. The volume of missing spaces is huge throughout the manuscript. ‘the research on the environmental effects of consumers' environmental preferences and their impact on the green economy and green behaviors of micro-enterprises needs’ – need. ‘To fill the gaps in previous studies’ – what previous studies? ‘based on stakeholder theory and signaling theory’ – who authored these theories? ‘Compared with previous studies’ – what studies specifically? ‘this paper study’ – studies. ‘: firstly, fewer existing studies directly link consumer environmental preferences’ – fewer? ‘In the 1960s, "environmental concern" was put on the policy agenda of Western countries as a social issue’ – substantiate. ‘Dunlap, Riley E. (2008)’ – unusual citation style, there are dozens and dozens of such instances. ‘more and more Chinese scholars began to use the NEP scale to study the Chinese public's "environmental concern" (Luo et al., 2009; Duan, 2010; Feng, 2010; Wang and Fu, 2011) – you typically cite very old sources only. How can they reflect the current situation in the field? ‘According to the Revealed Preference Theory proposed by P. Samuelson’ – year missing. ‘the effects of corporate digital transformation, corporate executive characteristics, public environmental concern, media attention, air pollution, environmental interviews and environmental regulation policies on corporate green innovation from the perspectives of internal corporate governance, public environmental appeal, media opinion monitoring and government environmental regulation (Xiao and Zeng, 2023; Song et al., 2022; Bao and Xue,2022; Galbreath J ,2019; Zhang et al., 2021; Yu , 2021; Tao et al., 2021)’ – it is unclear the association of each mentioned sources with the above concepts. ‘we sums up’, ‘we defines’ – very many language issues. ‘Internet search data based on Internet searches’ – poorly constructed. ‘referring to Zhang et al. (2020), this paper selects’ – whose paper, the mentioned one or yours? ‘the political perspective, State-owned enterprises’ – why initial capitalization? ‘6. Conclusion and implications 6.1. Discussion’ – Discussion should be a distinct section. The reference list is very poorly edited.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

‘but also bring many ecological problems such as resource constraints, serious pollution’ – poorly constructed. ‘the research on the environmental effects of consumers' environmental preferences and their impact on the green economy and green behaviors of micro-enterprises needs’ – need. ‘this paper study’ – studies. ‘: firstly, fewer existing studies directly link consumer environmental preferences’ – fewer? ‘we sums up’, ‘we defines’ – very many language issues. ‘Internet search data based on Internet searches’ – poorly constructed.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors Thank you very much for the opportunity to review the manuscript: "Can consumer Environmental Preferences Promote Firms' Green Technological Innovation? Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies of Heavily Polluting Industries.   I point out the two most relevant sections that the authors must improve and reflect with greater proportion in the conclusion section, achieving a greater connection with the three implications developed at the end of the manuscript.   In Introduction section, provide futher understanding in the relationship among theory of Revealed Preference, the perspective of consumer demand that to form a virtuous circle in which the demand side and in turn, the supply side promote the enterprise's green technological innovation, the aim of this manuscript about the green innovation of heavily polluting enterprises as well as  the micro-mechanism of China's consumer environmental preference on green economic growth.   In Theorical background section, you mixed manuscripts about some issues. Metrics when you said "there is no consensus among scholars in China on the use of the questionnaire method as a tool to measure environmental concern... more scholars use the environmental pollution search webdata instead of the micro-transaction data to conduct research". These two arguments are not sufficiently connected with consumer environmental preference will have an impact on the market operation of enterprises from the demand side, assuming it lead to firms towards changes in technology innovation, social reputation, green development. A major understanding about this issues in the manuscript is necessary to support Hypothesis 1. "Rising consumer environmental preferences promotes green technology innovation in heavily polluting firms".    The same happens with the next two subsections in this section that are promoted in two different theories, I refer to R&D investment with Stakeholder theory and after this to, Environmental protection concept the signaling theory.    Moreover, what arguments use authors to define indirect effects instead direct effect when the hypotheses are described (by stimulating R&D investment... or by reinforcing their...)?    Overall, three concepts with theories and add three hypotheses requires a greater specification of the link between the three subsection

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

The article has become much better.

The title is very long and consists of two sentences. Perhaps the authors should think about presenting the title in one sentence.

Exclude "and discussion" from 4. Results and discussion

The discussion section is one of the final parts of a research paper, in which an author describes, analyzes, and interprets their findings.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

It still unclear the specific contribution of source clusters, that are not developed anyway. E.g., the influence of consumer environmental preference on consumer product choice [12-15], existing studies are more concerned with the analysis of consumer behavior [16-19], improve the industrial structure, and increase the investment in environmental governance [25-29]'.

'Compared with previous studies on consumer environmental preference' - what studies?

Punctuation issues. E.g., 'Consumers' environmental preferences, are'.

Inconsistent style. E.g., 'In 1978, R. E. Dunlap and K. D. Van Liere formally introduced the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) scale in the Journal of Environmental Education', 'Stakeholder theory proposed by Freeman in 1984'.'Signaling theory proposed by Michael Spence in 1973 suggests'. 'According to the Revealed Preference Theory proposed by P. Samuelson in 1948'.

'China is US$1. 52.' - ?

'Some studies have found that consumer environmental preference have an impact on the market operation of enterprises from the demand side [13]' - but only one is mentioned.

11 of the 39 references are in Chinese.

 

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Due to several theories in theorical background section, authors must include their contributions to every theory in the discussion section.

Author Response

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Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

'Based on the above analyses, this paper attempts to raise and address the following questions: does an increase in the degree of consumer environmental preference promote green technology innovation in heavily polluting firms? What is the influence mechanism? Can the increase of environmental preference achieve the effect of promoting green innovation by increasing the R&D investment of enterprises?' - there are no 'above' analyses, only some simply displayed claims.

A lot of content needs substantiation. E.g., 'The production activities of heavily polluting enterprises bring economic benefits, but also bring many ecological problems. For example, heavily polluting enterprises contribute to environmental pollution and resource depletion. Exploring the green development of heavily polluting enterprises is a topic that needs to be solved urgently. '

'Compared with previous studies on consumer environmental preference [16-18]' - it is unclear what difference is between previous studies and yours.

'few existing studies directly link consumer environmental preferences and corporate green innovation' - mention some of the few studies.

' in the Journal of Environmental Education' - what is the point of mentioning the journal - unusual.

 

Author Response

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Round 4

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

'According to the annual consumer trend survey conducted by Zhimeng, 73.8% of consumers will give priority to green and environmentally friendly products or brands in their daily lives. Meanwhile, another 30.6% of consumers said that green products have improved their quality of life.' - there is no source & year for this content.

A lot of sources are simply displayed, without critical analysis and without specifying the results. Some of them provide almost zero info. E.g., 'Zheng et al. [30] searched the “Baidu” with the keyword "environment" and calculated environmental pollution search data to measure consumer environmental preferences.' 'Given the comprehensiveness of the information encompassed, referring to Zheng et al. [30]'. 'Referring to the study of Liu et al. [25], a baseline regression model'. ' this paper refers to Zheng et al. [30] to use core explanatory variables'. 'o reduce the endogeneity problem caused by sample selection bias, this paper refers to the study by Liu et al. [25]'. 'Based on the study of Zheng et al. [30], this paper'. 'In this paper, referring to Li et al. [27], the word frequency of keywords'.

'This finding is not reflected in previous studies [13,30,33]' - unclear. But what is reflected specifically?

 

Author Response

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