Resource slack, environmental management maturity and enterprise environmental protection investment: An enterprise life cycle adjustment perspective

Enterprise environmental protection investment has recently become increasingly essential to address environmental problems. Based on the data from China's A-share heavy pollution industry listed companies from 2007 to 2018, this paper empirically examines the impact of the degree of resource slack on enterprise environmental protection investment and the moderating effect of environmental management maturity on both. The results show that the degree of resource slack has a significant negative impact on the scale of enterprise environmental protection investment. As the maturity of environmental management increase, the negative impact of the degree of resource slack on the scale of enterprise protection environmental investment is significantly weakened. This paper further finds that there are significant differences in the moderating effect of environmental management maturity in enterprises of different life cycles on the relationship between the degree of resource slack and the scale of enterprise environmental protection investment. Compared with the enterprises in the recession period, the environmental management maturity in the growth and mature period can more alleviate the negative relationship between the degree of resource slack and the scale of enterprise environmental protection investment. The results are conducive to clarifying the important impact of implementing voluntary environmental management and strengthening internal control capabilities on enterprises' active environmental investment. It provides ideas for enterprises to dynamically adjust their environmental management methods, promote the improvement of internal governance and sustainable development. At the same time, it also provides a theoretical basis for the government to issue differentiated environmental regulations and improve the efficiency of government environmental governance.