China Economic Review 32 (2015) 43–56

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

China Economic Review

Impacts of ISO 14001 adoption on firm performance:

Evidence from China
Wenlong HE a, Chong LIU b, Jiangyong LU c,⁎, Jing CAO d
a
Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
b
School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100871, China
c
Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
d
School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100087, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper investigates the impacts of ISO 14001 adoption on the performance of firms using a
Received 16 January 2013 sample of Chinese firms. The results show that adopting ISO 14001 has insignificant impacts on
Received in revised form 17 November 2014 the financial performance of Chinese firms. A further investigation shows that the adoption of
Accepted 18 November 2014
ISO 14001 increases sales and costs of firms in similar magnitudes, thus causes insignificant
Available online 24 November 2014
net effects on the financial performance. Despite negligible financial gains, the adoption of
ISO 14001 provides implicit non-financial benefits, such as promoting export and relieving coercive
JEL classification: environmental inspections from the government.
D22
© 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
L51
Q56
Keywords:
ISO 14001
Chinese firms
Financial performance
Non-financial benefits

1. Introduction

With the urgent need for environmental protection, governments in many countries have formulated command-and-control
policies, such as setting energy conservation targets and emission abatement mandates. However, such command-and-control
policies are often criticized as being inflexible, heavy-handed, cost-ineffective, and providing fewer incentives for induced technology
changes. Based on the limitations of the command-and-control policies, governments in many countries have begun to encourage
certain market-oriented instruments or voluntary approaches that are typically viewed as more flexible, cost-effective and acceptable
to the private sectors (Arimura, Darnall, & Katayama, 2011). Since the mid-1990s, various voluntary actions in environmental man-
agement have been adopted by firms around the world, and the most notable practice is the adoption of ISO 14001 standard.
As the standard environmental management system certified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), ISO 14001
has been widely adopted across the world (Ambec & Lanoie, 2008). To understand the fast expansion of the ISO 14001 standard, scholars
have been interested in two questions: (1) What motivate firms to adopt the ISO 14001 standard? (2) What are the impacts of ISO 14001
adoption on firm performance? To date, the majority of the literature has focused on ISO 14001 adoption in developed economies. Some
representative studies in this area include Babakri, Bennett, and Franchetti (2003) and Delmas (2000), who studied the expansion of ISO

⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 62767406.

E-mail addresses: victorhewenlong@gmail.com (W. He), liuchong@sem.tsinghua.edu.cn (C. Liu), lujiangyong@gsm.pku.edu.cn (J. Lu), jingcao2007@gmail.com (J. Cao).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2014.11.008
1043-951X/© 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
44 W. He et al. / China Economic Review 32 (2015) 43–56

14001 among U.S. firms, Canon-de-Francia and Garces-Ayerbe (2009) and Morrow and Rondinelli (2002), who studied the adoption of
ISO 14001 in European counties, and Arimura et al. (2011), who studied the adoption of ISO 14001 by Japanese firms.
With the rapid development of industrial economy in recent decades, the pollution in China has aroused wide concern around the
world; of particular concern is the frequent haze that comprised high concentrated PM2.5 in urban China. With the heightened aware-
ness of corporate social responsibility, an increasing number of Chinese firms are actively pursuing various certifications on environ-
mental management, and ISO 14001 is the most popular one. According to the Certification and Accreditation Administration of
China (CAAC), the number of Chinese firms that adopted ISO 14001 reached 72,124 at the end of 2011, and China has outpaced
Japan and the United States to become the world's largest country for ISO 14001 adoption. This paper intends to evaluate impacts of
ISO 14001 adoption on performance of Chinese firms.
Although the extant literature has examined the effect (and extent) of ISO 14001 adoption on firm performance, findings are not con-
clusive (for a review, see Berchicci and King (2007)). Some studies have found that the adoption of ISO 14001 standard would improve a
firm's performance in terms of Tobin's Q, return on assets (ROA), return on sales (ROS), and return on equity (ROE) (Dowell, Hart, &
Yeung, 2000; Jacobs, Singhal, & Subramanian, 2010; Morrow & Rondinelli, 2002; Nishitani, 2011), whereas others have found neutral
or even negative effects of ISO 14001 adoption on a firm's performance (Gilley, Worrell, Davidson, & EI-Jelly, 2000; King & Lenox,
2001). Specifically, firms adopting the ISO 14001 standard are labeled as environment-friendly; therefore, they can gain differential ad-
vantages in their product sales, which could lead to larger market shares and higher profitability (Nishitani, 2011). Moreover, firms
adopting the ISO 14001 standard may develop more efficient production processes that reduce operational and waste-disposal costs
(Hart & Ahuja, 1996). However, the adoption of the ISO 14001 standard may not be able to boost firms' sales or enhance their stock mar-
ket evaluation; in such situations, the benefits would fail to offset increased costs of initial adoption and subsequent maintenance fees,
especially in the short run (Babakri et al., 2003; Bansal & Bogner, 2002). Therefore, it is still unclear whether ISO 14001 adoption en-
hances financial performance of firms or it is merely a placebo for firm managers who want to obtain membership in the ‘green club’.
The difficulty of reaching consistent findings about impacts of ISO 14001 adoption on firm performance may be incurred by the
potential endogeneity problem (Potoski & Prakash, 2005), and divergent research settings (King & Lenox, 2001). For example,
Yang, Hong, and Modi (2011) found that positive and significant impacts of environmental management on firm performance
were more likely to be observed in developed countries, whereas such an outcome did not occur in developing countries. Elsayed
and Paton (2005) indicated that such distinct effects might also exist across developing countries, such as in China, Argentina, and
Turkey. In addition, the adoption of ISO 14001 may exert distinct effects across different industries, and the aggregated net effect
might depend on the industry distribution of sampled firms.
In this paper, we generate a unique dataset by matching a survey of Chinese firms with the annual census data of Chinese industrial
firms. We first examine whether the adoption of ISO 14001 standard affects firm performance approximated by several financial indi-
cators, including ROA, ROE and ROS. We find statistically insignificant effects of ISO 14001 adoption on these financial performance in-
dicators. To determine mechanisms underlying the findings, we study the impacts of ISO 14001 adoption on sales and costs of firms. We
find that the ISO 14001 adoption simultaneously increases a firm's sales and costs in similar magnitudes. The increase of sales and costs
may offset each other and lead to insignificant impacts on firm's financial performance. Furthermore, we divide industries into three sub-
groups according to their pollution levels, namely heavy-, mid- and light-pollution industries. Results show that ISO 14001 adoption sig-
nificantly affects sales and costs of firms in heavy-pollution industries, but does not affect firms in the mid- or light-pollution industries.
Given the insignificant impacts of the ISO 14001 adoption on firm performance, the question remains why so many Chinese firms
have adopted ISO 14001 standard. Therefore, we further examine several implicit benefits of ISO 14001 adoption. Firstly, because a
large number of Chinese firms have made considerable headway in their implementation of “going-out” strategies, we consider
firm exporting. The findings show that Chinese firms with ISO 14001 certification tend to export a larger percentage of their total
sales, suggesting that ISO 14001 adoption provides Chinese firms with better access to the global market. Secondly, the Chinese
government has strengthened environmental inspections against manufacturing firms as a control measure against deterioration
of environmental pollution. Therefore, we also investigate how ISO 14001 adoption, as a substitute for command-and-control policies,
helps firms relieve the pressure of government environmental inspections. Results show that firms with ISO 14001 certification
receive less frequent inspections than their counterparts without ISO 14001 certification. In sum, although ISO 14001 adoption
does not improve financial performance of Chinese firms, there are implicit benefits associated with the certification that may explain
why Chinese firms actively adopt the ISO 14001 standard.
This paper is organized as follows: in Section 2, we give a brief introduction of the data and empirical methods; in Section 3, we
present the primary results and robustness tests; and in Section 4, we reach the conclusion.

2. Data and methods

2.1. Data

To examine the impacts of ISO 14001 adoption on firm performance, we combined a firm-level survey that was conducted by the
China Center for Economic Research (CCER) in 2006 with Chinese industrial firm census data that were compiled annually by the
National Bureau of Statistics. This CCER survey includes 1268 manufacturing firms randomly selected from 12 cities based on
China's industrial firm census data. The 12 sampled cities represent Chinese regions with different development levels.1 In each

1
The 12 sampled cities were distributed among coastal, central and western regions. According to the per-capita GDP of 2005, these 12 cities were grouped into three
categories: high, middle and low income. The income gap was roughly twofold between any two neighboring groups.
 W. He et al. / China Economic Review 32 (2015) 43–56 45

sampled city, the survey covers approximately 100 manufacturing firms with annual sales over 5 million RMB. The majority (68.7%) of
the sampled firms are domestic privately owned firms, and the remaining percentage is equally distributed among SOEs and foreign-
owned firms.2 In terms of export, 37.2% of the sampled firms engaged in export, and the average share of export to total sales is 10%. In
the CCER survey, the respondents are asked if the firm has adopted the ISO 14001 standard and in which year the adoption occurred.
The overall ISO 14001 adoption ratio in the sample is 14%.
Because the sampled firms in the CCER survey are randomly selected from China's industrial firm census data, the CCER survey is
actually a subsample of China's industrial firm census data; therefore, we are able to match the sampled firms by their firm identifi-
cation code to create a panel dataset. The financial information and other firm characteristics are derived from the census data, where-
as the status of a firm's ISO 14001 adoption in various years is derived from the CCER survey. We confine the period of study between
the years of 2004 and 2007, and thus, the final sample comprised 3868 observations. Table 1 provides definitions of variables
and information on data sources. To address the randomness of the sampled firms in the CCER survey, we compare the summary
statistics of two datasets and find that the CCER survey has a similar pattern to the firms in the industrial census data in terms of its
mean and standard deviation of key variables. Panel A in Table 2 reports the summary statistics of variables in the current research,
while Panel B in Table 2 reports the comparison with the industrial census data for the randomness of sample selection in the CCER
survey.

2.2. Panel regression method

We first examine the impacts of ISO 14001 adoption on the sampled firms' financial performance with panel regressions. The basic
model specification can be expressed as follows:
0
Y it ¼ β0 þ β1 ISOAdoptionit þ X it γ þ λ j þ ν p þ θt þ εit ð1Þ

where i, j, p, t are subscripts representing the firm, 2-digit industry, province and year, respectively; Yit is a series of dependent
variables that indicate firm performance, such as ROA, ROE, ROS, sales, and costs; ISOAdoptionit is the key explanatory variable that
indicates whether firm i adopted ISO 14001 in year t; and Xit is a vector of control variables at both the firm- and the industry-level
that have been proven to affect firm's financial performance. The firm-level control variables include firm size, ownership type, financial
leverage, advertising expenditures, as well as total factor productivity which is considered as a proxy of managerial quality (Melitz,
2003). The industry-level control variables are Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) of 2-digit industries in the city and growth rate of
2-digit industries in the city. Accordingly, β1 and γ are the coefficients of ISOAdoptionit and Xit. Finally, we include the 2-digit industry
dummies (λj), subnational region dummies (νp), and year dummies (θt) to capture the industry and location differences and macro-
economic conditions that might affect a firm's performance. εit is the error term.

2.3. Instrumental variables estimation

Our panel regressions may suffer from endogeneity for the following reasons. First, some unobserved omitted variables which in-
fluence both firms' decisions about whether to adopt ISO 14001 and their financial performance (Barla, 2007), may bias the results.
Second, reverse causality may arise, in that firms with better performance may have a higher probability to adopt ISO 14001. To ad-
dress the endogeneity issue, we use instrumental variable (IV) techniques. We use rival firm's ISO 14001 adoption ratio within the same
province and the same industry as an IV for the focal firm's ISO 14001 adoption. Rival firms' ISO 14001 adoption may positively associate
with the focal firm's adopting behavior due to peer pressure. On the other hand, rival firms' ISO 14001 adoption seems irrelevant to
the focal firm's financial performance because ISO 14001 is working through the development of internal procedures which should
not generate significant externalities (Barla, 2007).

2.4. Propensity score matching method

We also employ the propensity score matching (PSM) method for robustness checks. We first classify our sample into two groups:
the treatment group and the control group. The treatment group is composed of firms that have adopted the ISO 14001 standard,
whereas the control group is composed of the non-adoption counterparts. The second step is to calculate propensity scores, which
measure the extent of matching in the two groups in multiple dimensions. Specifically, propensity score is defined as “the conditional
probability of receiving a treatment given pre-treatment characteristics” by Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983), and is calculated as
p(X) = Pr[D = 1|X] = E[D|X], where X is the multidimensional vector of characteristics of the control group and D is an indicator
of ISO 14001 adoption. We control several dimensions that may affect firms' propensity to adopt ISO 14001, including firm demo-
graphics and industry-level characteristics. To calculate propensity scores, we follow Dehejia and Wahba (2002) and Becker and
Ichino (2002), and use a logit model, which is specified as:

expðβX i Þ
pðX i Þ ¼ Pr½Di ¼ 1jXi  ¼ ð2Þ
1 þ expðβX i Þ

2
Because the firms with ownership in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan (HMT) only comprised a small fraction, we categorized them into foreign owned.
46 W. He et al. / China Economic Review 32 (2015) 43–56

Table 1
Variable definitions and sources of information.

Variable name Definition Source

ROA Return on assets; Net income divided by total assets. Industrial firm census
ROE Return on equity; Net income divided by shareholder equity. Industrial firm census
ROS Return on sales; Net income divided by sales revenue. Industrial firm census
Sales Logarithm of the income from the main product or service; unit is thousand RMB. Industrial firm census
Costs Logarithm of the expenditures on the manufacturing/providing of main product or service, Industrial firm census
including the cost of raw material, labor and depreciation of fixed assets; unit is thousand RMB.
Firm's ISO 14001 adoption Dummy variable, with the value of ONE for the firm's ISO 14001 adopting year and years afterwards CCER survey
and ZERO otherwise.
Firm size Logarithm of the total number of employees. Industrial firm census
State ownership Dummy variable, with the value of ONE for state-owned companies and ZERO otherwise. CCER survey
Private ownership Dummy variable, with the value of ONE for privately owned companies and ZERO otherwise. CCER survey
Foreign ownership Dummy variable, with the value of ONE for foreign owned companies and ZERO otherwise. CCER survey
HHI in 2-digit industries Herfindahl–Hirschman Index in 2-digit industries in the same city. Industrial firm census
in the city
Growth rate of 2-digit Sales growth of an industry at the 2-digit level in the same city. Industrial firm census
industries in the city
Financial leverage Debt to asset ratio. Industrial firm census
Advertising expenditure Logarithm of firm's annual advertising fees. Industrial firm census
Total factor productivity Total factor productivity based on OLS production function estimates. Industrial firm census
Export ratio Ratio of export in total sales. Industrial firm census
Government environmental Frequency of environmental inspections by the government at different levels. CCER survey
inspections
Publicly listed firm Dummy variable, with the value of ONE for publicly listed firms and ZERO otherwise. CCER survey
Environmental report Dummy variable, with the value of ONE for firms publishing annual environmental report CCER survey
and ZERO otherwise.
Pollution discharge fee in 2004 Logarithm of pollution discharge fee in 2004. Industrial firm census
Output Logarithm of the quantity of goods or services produced by a firm in a given year. Industrial firm census
Value added Logarithm of the new value created by a firm in a given year, and it's calculated as the Industrial firm census
output minus intermediate input while plus the value added tax (VAT)
Asset Logarithm of the total assets of a firm in a given year Industrial firm census
Rival firms' ISO 14001 The ratio of firms (except the focal firm) that adopt ISO 14001 standard in the same region CCER survey
adoption ratio and the same industry.

With calculated propensity scores, we then use the nearest-neighbor matching method to search, both backwards and forwards,
for the closest control sample. Finally, we use the bootstrap method to obtain a robust variance for the average effect of treatment on
the treated (ATT). ATT can be estimated by the differences in potential outcome between the treatment group and control group,
which are calculated as:

ATT ¼ E½Y1i ‐Y0i jDi ¼ 1 ¼ EfE½Y1i ‐Y0i jDi ¼ 1; pðX i Þg

ð3Þ
¼ EffE½Y1i jDi ¼ 1; pðXi Þ‐E½Y0i jDi ¼ 0; pðXi ÞgjDi ¼ 1g

where Y1i and Y0i represent the potential outcome of the treatment group and control group, respectively.

3. Estimation results

In this section, we first present he results of panel regressions with the full sample and investigate the impacts of ISO 14001 adop-
tion on firms' financial performance, sales, and costs. We then divide the full sample into three sub-groups according to pollution level
to examine how the impacts of ISO 14001 adoption vary across industries with distinct pollution levels. After reporting the results of
panel regressions, we present the results of two-stage least squares approach and the propensity score matching method. Finally, we
explore additional implicit benefits of ISO 14001 adoption.

3.1. Financial performance after ISO 14001 adoption

Table 3 includes the regression results of the impacts of ISO 14001 adoption on firm performance. Return on assets (ROA), return
on equity (ROE) and return on sales (ROS) measure different aspects of firm financial performance and are used as alternative perfor-
mance indicators in the literature (Gentry & Shen, 2010; Hart & Ahuja, 1996). Specifically, ROA reflects firms' efficiency in utilizing
their assets to earn profit (Arabsalehi & Mahmoodi, 2012), ROE measures firms' capability to earn profit using net equity of firms
(Chen & Dodd, 2001), and ROS implies firms' profit earning efficiency on its revenue base (Shamsie, Martin, & Miller, 2009). ISO
14001 adoption may affect the three financial indicators through different mechanisms because of their distinct characteristics. On
the one hand, ISO 14001 adoption may affect firms' ROS by expanding its market share and increasing its sales revenue. On the
other hand, ISO 14001 adoption tends to affect firms' ROA and ROE through the improvement of operating efficiency, because the
scheme of “Plan-Do-Check-Act” in ISO 14001 standard helps to reduce costs of operation and waste-disposal. We include all the
 W. He et al. / China Economic Review 32 (2015) 43–56 47

Table 2
Summary statistics and comparison with industrial census data.

Panel A: Summary statistics of variables in the current research

Variable Mean S.D. Min. Max.

ROA 0.07 0.09 −0.04 0.32

ROE 0.18 0.22 −0.09 0.77
ROS 0.04 0.05 −0.04 0.13
Sales 10.98 1.46 4.38 17.98
Costs 10.94 1.47 4.72 17.88
Firm's ISO 14001 adoption 0.14 0.26 0.00 1.00
Firm size 5.30 1.21 0.69 10.52
State ownership 0.20 0.40 0.00 1.00
Private ownership 0.63 0.48 0.00 1.00
Foreign ownership 0.20 0.40 0.00 1.00
HHI in 2-digit industries in the city 0.14 0.17 0.00 1.00
Growth rate of 2-digit industries in the city 1.41 1.32 0.09 33.38
Financial leverage 0.59 0.25 −0.24 1.00
Advertising expenditure 1.29 2.43 0.00 13.46
Total factor productivity 4.44 1.16 −1.32 8.21
Export ratio 0.10 0.25 0.00 1.00
Government environmental inspections 2.86 4.32 0.00 60.00
Publicly listed firm 0.04 0.20 0.00 1.00
Environmental report 0.25 0.43 0.00 1.00
Pollution discharge fee in 2004 1.25 1.94 0.00 9.41
Note: Panel A reports the summary statistics of variables used in the current research. The data sources include both the industrial firm census data compiled annually
by the National Bureau of Statistics, and the survey conducted by the China Center for Economic Research in 2006. The definitions of the variables are in Table 1.

Panel B: Comparison with industrial census data for the randomness of the CCER survey

Firms in the CCER survey Firms in the industrial census Firms within the same regions &
industries in the industrial census

Variables N Mean s.d. N Mean s.d. N Mean s.d.

ROA 4189 0.065 0.087 1,064,766 0.072 0.088 643,152 0.072 0.087
ROE 4169 0.177 0.218 1,062,964 0.187 0.218 642,249 0.192 0.218
ROS 4188 0.037 0.045 1,064,627 0.037 0.042 643,104 0.036 0.041
Costs 4189 10.937 1.465 1,064,812 10.045 1.264 643,165 10.07 1.243
Sales 4188 10.985 1.465 1,064,814 10.114 1.278 643,165 10.136 1.253
Output 3933 11.02 1.456 1,064,753 10.159 1.271 643,144 10.175 1.25
Value Added 3933 9.644 1.522 1,064,753 8.777 1.374 643,144 8.757 1.344
Asset 4189 10.728 1.602 1,064,814 9.703 1.395 643,165 9.696 1.372
Employee 4189 5.305 1.212 1,064,813 4.679 1.067 643,164 4.664 1.062

Notes: Panel B demonstrates the comparison between the CCER survey sample and the industrial firm census data with regard to some key factors of firm characteristics, so
as to address the randomness of the sample selection of the CCER survey. The data source is the industrial firm census data compiled annually by the National Bureau of
Statistics. The definitions of the variables are in Table 1.

three firm performance measures to investigate the impacts of ISO 14001 adoption on firm performance. Columns 1–3 of Table 3
report the impacts of ISO 14001 adoption on ROA, ROE, and ROS, respectively. The coefficients of ISO 14001 adoption have small
magnitudes and are statistically insignificant, which shows that ISO 14001 adoption has small impacts on firm financial performance.

3.2. Sales and costs after ISO 14001 adoption

The insignificant impacts of ISO 14001 adoption on firm financial performance motivate us to further investigate underlying mech-
anisms. Therefore, we decompose the financial indicators into sales and costs. Based on China's Accounting Standards for Business
Enterprises, sales refer to the income from firms' main products or services, while costs refer to the expenditures of manufacturing
and providing main products or services, including costs of raw material, labor, and depreciation of fixed assets.3 The results are pre-
sented in Columns 4 and 5 of Table 3. In Column 4, the coefficient of ISO 14001 adoption is positively associated with sales, which is
consistent with prior studies (Galdeano-Gomez, 2008; Judge & Douglas, 1998; Yang et al., 2011). To be specific, ISO 14001 adoption
increases sales by 14.2%, with the statistical significance at the 5% level. A firm's adoption of ISO 14001 can be viewed either as a sym-
bolic behavior that suggests environment-friendliness or as a substantive signal of improved environmental performance; both effects
help a firm to exploit niches in the green product market (Ambec & Lanoie, 2008). Nevertheless, in Column 5 of Table 3, the results
show that ISO 14001 adoption also has a significantly positive impact on costs. Specifically, ISO 14001 adoption increases costs by
14.1%, similar to its effect on sales. Such an increase in costs may be incurred by the initial adoption and maintenance of ISO 14001

3
It is noteworthy that operating expenses (like advertising fee) and administrative expenses (like R&D expenses and pollution discharge fee) are not included in
costs.
48 W. He et al. / China Economic Review 32 (2015) 43–56

Table 3
The effect of ISO 14001 adoption on firm's performance. Panel regression.

ROA ROE ROS Sales Costs

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Firm's adoption of ISO 14001 0.006 0.005 0.001 0.142** 0.141**

(0.007) (0.020) (0.004) (0.062) (0.059)
Firm size 0.002 0.004 0.001 0.698*** 0.694***
(0.002) (0.004) (0.001) (0.019) (0.018)
State ownership −0.015*** −0.033** −0.008** −0.056 −0.033
(0.005) (0.014) (0.003) (0.059) (0.059)
Private ownership 0.010** 0.021* 0.000 −0.110** −0.111**
(0.005) (0.012) (0.002) (0.048) (0.048)
HHI in 2-digit industries in the city 0.014 0.028 0.011 0.148 0.137
(0.012) (0.037) (0.008) (0.117) (0.113)
Growth rate of 2-digit industries in the city 0.004** 0.015*** 0.001 0.010 0.008
(0.002) (0.005) (0.001) (0.015) (0.016)
Financial leverage −0.079*** 0.151*** −0.044*** −0.151*** −0.085
(0.007) (0.019) (0.003) (0.050) (0.052)
Advertising expenditure 0.000 −0.001 0.001*** 0.026*** 0.025***
(0.001) (0.001) (0.000) (0.004) (0.004)
Total factor productivity 0.027*** 0.069*** 0.008*** 0.469*** 0.443***
(0.002) (0.005) (0.001) (0.026) (0.026)
Constant −0.053** −0.339*** 0.020 4.425*** 4.506***
(0.026) (0.069) (0.013) (0.317) (0.319)
2-Digit industry fixed effect Y Y Y Y Y
Provincial fixed effect Y Y Y Y Y
Yearly fixed effect Y Y Y Y Y
Number of obs. 3868 3868 3868 3868 3868
R2 0.131 0.101 0.045 0.572 0.552

Notes: Foreign ownership is the reference group. The data is from the survey conducted by China Center for Economic Research in 2006, as well as the industrial firm
census data compiled annually by the National Bureau of Statistics. The definitions of all variables are in Table 1. *** p b 0.01, ** p b 0.05, * p b 0.1. Standard errors are in
parentheses.

system (Bansal & Hunter, 2003), as well as manufacturing process reengineering that aims to control firm's environmental externality
(Hart & Ahuja, 1996).
Taken together, the regression results show that ISO 14001 adoption has positive impacts on sales and costs with similar magnitudes;
therefore, benefits of sales growth may be largely offset by the simultaneous increase of costs. Such a finding helps to explain the insig-
nificant net effect of ISO 14001 adoption on financial performance (i.e., ROA, ROE, and ROS) of firms.

3.3. ISO 14001 adoption in industries with different pollution intensities

Elsayed and Paton (2005) indicated that although the overall effect of ISO 14001 adoption may be small or even negligible, the im-
pacts of ISO 14001 adoption can be different across industries. Hart and Ahuja (1996) also argued that heavy polluters may be more
prone to adopting better environmental management system because such a system makes it easier to achieve pollution reduction
in heavy pollution industries. Therefore, subsample tests are important to investigate heterogeneous impacts of ISO 14001 adoption
across industries.
We divide sampled firms into three sub-groups according to the percentiles of waste-gas emission intensity of their industries4:
‘heavy-pollution,’ or the top one-third industries that had the most intensive waste-gas emissions, ‘mid-pollution,’ or the mid one-
third industries that had medium-intensive waste-gas emissions, and ‘light-pollution,’ or the bottom one-third industries that had
low-intensive waste-gas emissions.
The results are reported in Columns 2–4 of Table 4. The impacts of ISO 14001 adoption on financial performance, i.e., ROA, ROE, and
ROS, are statistically insignificant in most sub-categories, except for the regression on ROS in light-pollution industries. For sales and
costs, the coefficients of ISO 14001 adoption are positive and statistically significant in heavy-pollution industries, but are statistically
insignificant for mid- and light-pollution industries. The sub-category analyses confirm that ISO 14001 adoption has distinct impacts
among industries with various pollution levels.

3.4. IV Estimations

We utilize the instrumental variable technique to deal with the endogenous issue in regressions. Column 1 of Table 5 demonstrates
the first-stage results. The coefficient of the instrumental variable is positive and statistically significant, indicating that a focal firm is
more inclined to adopt ISO 14001 when more of its rival firms in its affiliated region and industry do so. To rule out the concern of

4
The information of waste-gas emission intensity was from the report of industry-level pollution that was compiled by the National Bureau of Statistics.
 W. He et al. / China Economic Review 32 (2015) 43–56 49

Table 4
The effect of ISO 14001 adoption by different polluting levels. Panel regression.

Dependent variable Full sample Sub-sample: the level of pollution

[1] [2] [3] [4]

Heavy pollution Mid pollution Light pollution

ROA 0.006 0.014 0.006 −0.007

(0.007) (0.016) (0.008) (0.012)
ROE 0.005 0.013 0.008 −0.032
(0.020) (0.044) (0.023) (0.038)
ROS 0.001 0.008 0.004 −0.014*
(0.004) (0.007) (0.006) (0.007)
Sales 0.142** 0.265** 0.057 0.090
(0.062) (0.128) (0.084) (0.074)
Costs 0.141** 0.239* 0.058 0.123
(0.059) (0.123) (0.083) (0.075)
Number of obs. 3868 1697 1463 708

Notes: Column 1 consolidates the results in Table 3. Columns 2 to 4 investigate the effect of ISO 14001 adoption on firm performance across different levels of pollution.
Control variables are consistent with those in Table 3, although they are not tabulated here as a result of limited space. The data sources include both the survey con-
ducted by China Center for Economic Research in 2006, and the industrial firm census data compiled annually by the National Bureau of Statistics. The definitions of all
variables are in Table 1. *** p b 0.01, ** p b 0.05, * p b 0.1; standard errors are in parentheses.

weak IV, we conduct the Stock–Yogo weak ID test (Staiger & Stock, 1997). As the result shows, the Cragg–Donald Wald F statistic is
769.87, far beyond the critical value of Stock–Yogo weak ID test (16.38), which clearly denies the weak IV concern. Columns 2 to 6
of Table 5 provide results of second stage estimations. The IV specifications generally confirm the findings in Table 3, i.e. firm's adop-
tion of ISO 14001 does not have a significant impact on firm's financial performance because of simultaneous increases in sales and
costs.

Table 5
The effects of ISO 14001 adoption on firm's performance. Two-stage least squares approach.

First-stage Second-stage

DV: Firm's adoption of ISO 14001 ROA ROE ROS Sales Costs

Firm's adoption of ISO 14001 0.012 0.015 0.001 0.351*** 0.397***

(0.011) (0.029) (0.007) (0.118) (0.114)
Firm size 0.034*** −0.001 −0.004 −0.000 0.801*** 0.802***
(0.004) (0.001) (0.003) (0.001) (0.012) (0.012)
State ownership −0.012 −0.012*** −0.024** −0.006*** −0.081*** −0.062**
(0.012) (0.003) (0.010) (0.002) (0.031) (0.031)
Private ownership −0.022** 0.009*** 0.021*** 0.001 −0.046* −0.045*
(0.009) (0.003) (0.008) (0.002) (0.026) (0.026)
HHI in 2-digit industry of the city 0.003 0.007 −0.009 0.009 0.431*** 0.434***
(0.030) (0.010) (0.030) (0.006) (0.098) (0.099)
Growth rate of 2-digit industry in the city −0.001 0.003 0.012* 0.001 0.017 0.016
(0.005) (0.002) (0.006) (0.002) (0.024) (0.025)
Financial leverage 0.007 −0.097*** 0.095*** −0.057*** −0.120*** −0.022
(0.013) (0.005) (0.014) (0.003) (0.042) (0.042)
Advertising expenditure 0.008*** −0.000 −0.002* 0.002*** 0.058*** 0.054***
(0.002) (0.001) (0.001) (0.000) (0.005) (0.005)
Total factor productivity 0.004 0.029*** 0.073*** 0.008*** 0.582*** 0.558***
(0.004) (0.001) (0.004) (0.001) (0.018) (0.017)
I.V.: Rival firms' ISO 14001 adoption ratio in the 0.948***
same region and industry
(0.048)
Constant −0.192*** −0.029* −0.273*** 0.033*** 3.261*** 3.278***
(0.055) (0.017) (0.047) (0.009) (0.185) (0.185)
2-Digit industry fixed effect Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Provincial fixed effect Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Year fixed effect Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Weak identification test (Cragg–Donald Wald F statistic) 769.87
Stock–Yogo weak ID test critical values (10% maximal IV size) 16.38
Number of obs. 3868 3868 3868 3868 3868 3868
R2 0.298 0.364 0.230 0.251 0.819 0.816

Notes: Column 1 reports the first-stage result, which regresses firm's ISO 14001 adoption on all the covariates and the instrumental variable. The Cragg–Donald
Wald F statistic (769.87) is much larger than the critical value of Stock–Yogo weak ID test (16.38), which implies that our instrumental variable is not weak.
Columns 2 to 6 report the second-stage results, which are highly consistent with the results in Table 3. Data sources include the survey conducted by China
Center for Economic Research in 2006, and the industrial firm census data compiled annually by the National Bureau of Statistics. Definitions of all variables are in
Table 1. *** p b 0.01, ** p b 0.05, * p b 0.1. Standard errors are in parentheses.
50 W. He et al. / China Economic Review 32 (2015) 43–56

Table 6
The effect of ISO 14001 adoption by different polluting levels. Two-stage least squares approach.

Panel A: First-stage

Dependent variable: Firm's adoption of ISO 14001

Instrument variable Sub-sample: the level of pollution

[1] [2] [3]

Heavy pollution Mid pollution Light pollution

(1) Rival firms' ISO 14001 adoption ratio in the same region & industry 1.013*** 0.934*** 0.884***
(0.097) (0.107) (0.068)
Cragg–Donald Wald F statistic 321.629 139.110 171.651
(2) Rival firms' ISO 14001 adoption ratio in the same region & industry 1.023*** 0.905*** 0.884***
(0.097) (0.105) (0.068)
Cragg–Donald Wald F statistic 326.116 133.237 171.651
(3) Rival firms' ISO 14001 adoption ratio in the same region & industry 1.013*** 0.934*** 0.884***
(0.097) (0.107) (0.068)
Cragg–Donald Wald F statistic 321.629 139.110 171.651
(4) Rival firms' ISO 14001 adoption ratio in the same region & industry 1.013*** 0.934*** 0.884***
(0.097) (0.107) (0.068)
Cragg–Donald Wald F statistic 321.629 139.110 171.651
(5) Rival firms' ISO 14001 adoption ratio in the same region & industry 1.013*** 0.934*** 0.884***
(0.097) (0.107) (0.068)
Cragg–Donald Wald F statistic 321.629 139.110 171.651

Panel B: Second-stage

D.V. Full sample Sub-sample: the level of pollution

[1] [2] [3] [4]

Heavy pollution Mid pollution Light pollution

(1) ROA 0.012 −0.005 −0.003 −0.002

(0.011) (0.017) (0.023) (0.021)
(2) ROE 0.015 −0.033 −0.068 −0.014
(0.029) (0.050) (0.064) (0.054)
(3) ROS 0.001 0.014 −0.024* −0.019*
(0.007) (0.011) (0.014) (0.011)
(4) Sales 0.351*** 0.726*** 0.624** −0.203
(0.118) (0.241) (0.261) (0.147)
(5) Costs 0.397*** 0.747*** 0.724*** −0.149
(0.114) (0.238) (0.264) (0.146)
Number of obs. 3868 1697 1463 708

Notes: Panel A reports the first-stage results with the instrumental variable, as well as the Cragg–Donald Wald F statistics. The row numbers correspond to ROA, ROE,
ROS, Sales, and Costs, respectively. Panel B reports the second-stage results. Column 1 consolidates the results in Table 5, while Columns 2 to 4 report the results of sub-
group tests. Control variables are not tabulated here, due to limited space. The data sources include both the survey conducted by China Center for Economic Research in
2006, and the industrial firm census data compiled annually by the National Bureau of Statistics. The definitions of all variables are in Table 1. *** p b 0.01, ** p b 0.05, *
p b 0.1; standard errors are in parentheses.

We also employ the IV technique across subgroups with different pollution levels. Panel A of Table 6 reports the first-stage results.
The instrumental variable retains its strength in the weak IV tests (i.e. Cragg–Donald Wald F statistic is larger than 16.38). Panel B reports
the second-stage results. Similar to OLS estimations, the coefficients of ISO 14001 adoption on financial indicators are statistically insig-
nificant across all the subgroups. In regressions on sales and costs, the coefficients of ISO 14001 adoption are positive and statistically
significant in high- and mid-pollution industries.

3.5. Propensity score matching estimations

In this section, we report the results of the propensity score matching method. Fig. 1a and b shows kernel densities of the treat-
ment group and control group before and after matching, respectively. The two groups are fairly comparable after propensity
matching according to Fig. 1b. The balancing tests for propensity score matching are reported in Table 7a. The selected dimensions
which were significantly different between the two groups are significantly indifferent after matching.
We report the ATT on the outcome variables (i.e., financial performance, sales revenue and costs) in Table 7b. As the results show,
none of the ATTs for the three financial indicators is statistically significant in the post-matching sample. However, for sales and costs,
ATTs of ISO 14001 adoption are statistically significant in the post-matching sample, although the magnitude has decreased compared
to the pre-matching sample (0.320 vs. 1.349 for sales revenue and 0.279 vs. 1.349 for costs). Therefore, the results of the PSM method
are consistent with those in the panel regressions.
 W. He et al. / China Economic Review 32 (2015) 43–56 51

a.
Before Matching
15

10

Density
Treat
Control

0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Propensity Score

b.
After Matching
6

4
Density

Treat
Control

0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Propensity Score

Fig. 1. Kernel density of treated and controlled groups.

Table 7a
Balancing tests for propensity score matching.

Mean % Reduction T-test

Variable Sample Treated Controlled %bias in |bias| t P-value

Firm size Pre-matching 6.391 5.219 98.7 16.83 0.00

Post-matching 6.391 6.400 −0.7 99.3 −0.09 0.93
State ownership Pre-matching 0.232 0.201 7.5 1.29 0.20
Post-matching 0.232 0.239 −1.6 78.8 −0.19 0.85
Private ownership Pre-matching 0.448 0.644 −40.1 −6.88 0.00
Post-matching 0.448 0.474 −5.4 86.7 −0.65 0.52
HHI in 2-digit industries in the city Pre-matching 0.181 0.133 24.3 4.62 0.00
Post-matching 0.181 0.188 −3.6 85.3 −0.39 0.70
Growth rate of 2-digit industries in the city Pre-matching 1.279 1.422 −14.1 −1.83 0.07
Post-matching 1.279 1.327 −4.7 66.6 −1.26 0.21
Advertising expenditure Pre-matching 0.613 0.593 8.5 1.36 0.18
Post-matching 0.613 0.608 1.8 79.0 0.22 0.83
Total factor productivity Pre-matching 2.570 1.197 48.5 9.60 0.00
Post-matching 2.570 2.671 −3.6 92.7 −0.38 0.71

Notes: “Pre-matching” refers to the sample before matching the ISO 14001 adopting group with the non-adoption group, and “Post-matching” refers to the sample after
matching. “Treated group” and “Controlled group” refer to firms with and without ISO 14001 certification, respectively. The data sources include both the survey con-
ducted by China Center for Economic Research in 2006, and the industrial firm census data compiled annually by the National Bureau of Statistics. The definitions of all
variables are in Table 1.
52 W. He et al. / China Economic Review 32 (2015) 43–56

Table 7b
Impact of ISO 14001 adoption on firm's performance. Propensity score matching.

Variable Sample Treated group Controlled group ATT s.e. t-value

ROA Pre-matching 0.066 0.065 0.000 0.005 0.080

Post-matching 0.066 0.059 0.007 0.008 0.970
ROE Pre-matching 0.175 0.177 −0.002 0.013 −0.160
Post-matching 0.175 0.155 0.020 0.022 1.090
ROS Pre-matching 0.041 0.036 0.005 0.003 1.82*
Post-matching 0.041 0.039 0.003 0.005 0.640
Sales Pre-matching 12.236 10.886 1.349 0.084 15.98***
Post-matching 12.236 11.916 0.320 0.102 2.41**
Costs Pre-matching 12.188 10.838 1.349 0.084 15.97***
Post-matching 12.188 11.909 0.279 0.108 2.12**

Notes: The data source here is the industrial firm census data compiled annually by the National Bureau of Statistics. The definitions of the variables are in Table 1. ***
p b 0.01, ** p b 0.05, * p b 0.1. Standard errors are calculated using the bootstrap method with 300 replications.

We also utilize the PSM method to examine the impacts of ISO 14001 adoption across industries with different pollution levels. The
results reported in Table 8 show that ISO 14001 adoption has positive and statistically significant impacts on firm financial performance
(i.e., ROA, ROE, and ROS) as well as sales and costs in heavy-pollution industries. It is noteworthy that the economic magnitude of ISO
14001 adoption on sales is larger than that on costs (0.326 vs. 0.239); the net effect of ISO 14001 adoption on financial performance
of firms in heavy-pollution industries is positive and significant. Nevertheless, the coefficients of ISO 14001 are statistically insignificant
for firms in mid- and light-pollution industries. Such results are consistent with those of the panel regressions.

3.6. Sensitivity analysis: Rosenbaum bounds

Although matching has become a popular method to estimate average treatment effects, the method is based on the conditional
independence assumption, which states that researchers should observe all of the variables that simultaneously influence the partic-
ipation decisions and outcome variables. In other words, if there are unobserved variables that simultaneously affect the ISO 14001
adoption and firm performance, matching estimators can be biased. To address this concern, we conducted a sensitivity analysis
using the Rosenbaum bounds method (DiPrete & Gangl, 2004; Rosenbaum, 2002). The purpose of this procedure is to determine if
the average treatment effect is affected by unobserved variables.
Assume that the treatment probability is as follows:

Pi ¼ PðDi ¼ 1jXi ; ui Þ ¼ Fðβ Xi þ γui Þ

where Xi are the observed covariates, ui is an unobserved covariate, γ is the effect of ui on the treatment selection and F is the logistic
distribution. We define the ratio of the odds that a treated case i has the unobserved characteristic as the odds that the control case j
has the characteristic:

Pi =ð1−Pi Þ expðβXi þ γui Þ

¼

P j = 1−P j exp βX j þ γu j

As implied by the matching procedure, i and j have the same covariates, which implies the following:

Pi =ð1−Pi Þ h
i

 ¼ exp γ ui −u j
P j = 1−P j

Table 8
Impact of ISO 14001 adoption by different polluting levels. Propensity score matching.

A, Full sample B, Heavy pollution C, Mid pollution D, Light pollution

ATT t-value ATT t-value ATT t-value ATT t-value

ROA 0.007 0.970 0.041 2.89*** 0.004 0.400 0.006 0.460

ROE 0.020 1.090 0.057 1.76* 0.002 0.080 0.000 0.010
ROS 0.003 0.640 0.024 3.56*** −0.002 −0.310 −0.010 −1.100
Sales 0.320 2.41** 0.326 2.07** 0.185 0.720 0.108 0.490
Costs 0.279 2.12** 0.239 1.74* 0.190 0.750 0.108 0.500

Notes: Columns 1 and 2 consolidate the results in Table 5B. Columns 3 to 8 examine the effect of ISO 14001 adoption at different levels of pollution by using the
propensity score matching method. The results are consistent with those in Table 4. The data sources include both the survey conducted by China Center for Economic
Research in 2006, and the industrial firm census data compiled annually by the National Bureau of Statistics. The definitions of all variables are in Table 1. *** p b 0.01, **
p b 0.05, * p b 0.1.
 W. He et al. / China Economic Review 32 (2015) 43–56 53

If the unobserved variable has no influence on the probability of treatment (γ = 0) or is the same for the treated and non-treated
cases (ui = uj), the odds ratio is equal to one, which indicates the absence of the hidden bias linked to the unobservable variables. A
sensitivity analysis assesses the degree to which the treatment effect is modified by changing the values of γ and ui − uj. Assuming
that Г = eγ, Rosenbaum (2002) identifies the following bounds on the odds ratio:

1 P =ð1−Pi Þ
≤ i
 ≤Г
Г P = 1−P
j j

Because the basic idea of the Rosenbaum bound approach is to identify the extent to which unobserved confounding variables
would bias the results to jeopardize their robustness, a Γ-measure produces the degree to which a scenario departs from the ideal
case of no additional confoundedness. Γ = 1(γ = 0) indicates that no hidden bias exists, whereas increasing values of Γ imply an in-
creasing influence of the unobserved characteristics in the treatment selection. The Rosenbaum bound method uses matching esti-
mates to calculate the confidence intervals of the treatment effect for different values of Γ.
Table 9 reports the results of the Rosenbaum bounds method for sales and costs under the treatment of ISO 14001 adoption.5 The
critical values of Γ reach 1.45 and 1.4 for sales and costs, respectively, meaning that the unobserved characteristic ui would have to
increase the odds ratio by more than 45% and 40% before it would bias the estimated impacts.

3.7. Implicit benefits of ISO 14001 adoption

Our previous analyses show that ISO 14001 adoption does not significantly enhance firm's financial performance. Thus, the question
remains what drives the ISO 14001 adoption by so many Chinese firms. Are there any implicit benefits other than financial gains? In this
section, we study several possible implicit benefits that may be incurred by firm's ISO 14001 adoption. First, given that many Chinese
firms have made considerable headway in their implementation of “going-out” strategy, we are interested in how the ISO 14001 adop-
tion affects firm's access to the global market. We create the variable of Export ratio, which is calculated as the share of a firm's exporting
revenue in its total sales in a given year. Firm's exporting information can be obtained from the annual industrial firm census data. Sec-
ond, we examine the relationship between a firm's ISO 14001 adoption and environmental inspections the firm receives from the local
government. In recent years, the Chinese government has strengthened environmental inspections against manufacturing firms, aiming
to control the deterioration of environmental pollution. Therefore, it makes sense for us to investigate how the ISO 14001 adoption, as a
substitute for the command-and-control policies, helps firms to relieve the coercive environmental inspections. Information about gov-
ernment environmental inspections originates from the CCER survey.
We report implicit benefits of ISO 14001 adoption in Table 10. In Column 1, the coefficient of firm's ISO 14001 adoption is positive
and statistically significant at 0.01 level, which indicates that ISO 14001 adoption helps to facilitate firm's export. It is reasonable to
believe that ISO 14001 adopting firms are easier to expand in the global market because developed countries usually set green
trade barriers and ISO 14001 certification can act as a permit to enter their markets. Column 2 of Table 10 reports the impact of firm's
ISO 14001 adoption on the government environmental inspections. The control variables are consistent with those in the above anal-
yses. We add some additional variables that have been revealed to affect the government environmental inspections in the extant lit-
erature, including a dummy of publicly listed firm, firm's pollution discharge fee in 2004, and a dummy of environmental report.6 The
estimated coefficient of firm's ISO 14001 adoption is negative and statistically significant. Such a finding suggests that the ISO 14001
certification might be regarded as a signal of environmental compliance by the government, so that it relieves the focal firm from
the coercive environmental inspections.
Nevertheless, we also acknowledge the potential endogeneity problem in the results of Table 10. To be specific, firm's exporting
activities can be endogenous with ISO 14001 adoption insofar as both of them are correlated with some unobservable factors, like
managerial quality. Meanwhile, firms may proactively adopt ISO 14001 standard to relieve themselves from coercive environmental
inspections, or it could also be the other way around, in that coercive environmental inspections lead firms to adopt ISO 14001 stan-
dard (Potoski & Prakash, 2005). To deal with the endogenous issue, we also utilize the IV technique for export ratio and governmental
environmental inspections. We present the second-stage results in Columns 3 and 4 in Table 10, respectively. The results of the IV esti-
mation are highly consistent with those of OLS analyses in Columns 1 and 2. We also conduct the Stock–Yogo weak ID test for the
above analyses. The Cragg–Donald F statistics turn out to be 710.07 in the model of export ratio and 46.90 in the model of environmental
inspections, both of which are larger than the critical value of Stock–Yogo weak ID test (16.38).

5
We do not report the Rosenbaum bounds for ROA, ROE, and ROS, because sensitivity tests are not meaningful if the original PSM results indicated no treatment
effects.
6
The definition and measurement of the three variables are listed in Table 1. We control publicly listed firm because previous work has revealed that they are under
the public supervision and are more transparent than private firms (Jiang & Bansal, 2003); therefore, the government inspectors may treat them differently. We also
control firm's pollution discharge fee in 2004, which reflects the focal firm's pollution degree. Firms that have higher degree of pollution often receive more frequent en-
vironmental inspections from the local government (Wang, 2002). Similar to publicly listed firms, firms that release environmental report annually usually have better
transparency in their efforts of environmental management; thus, they are likely to receive distinct treatment from the local government.
54 W. He et al. / China Economic Review 32 (2015) 43–56

Table 9
Rosenbaum bounds for 2-NN ATT estimates (P-values).

Sales Costs

Γ sig+ sig− sig+ sig−

1.00 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000

1.05 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
1.10 0.001 0.000 0.001 0.000
1.15 0.002 0.000 0.004 0.000
1.20 0.006 0.000 0.010 0.000
1.25 0.014 0.000 0.022 0.000
1.30 0.029 0.000 0.042 0.000
1.35 0.053 0.000 0.074 0.000
1.40 0.088 0.000 0.120 0.000
1.45 0.137 0.000 0.179 0.000
1.50 0.199 0.000 0.252 0.000
1.55 0.273 0.000 0.334 0.000
1.60 0.355 0.000 0.423 0.000

Notes: A Γ-measure produces the degree to which a scenario departs from the ideal case of no additional confoundedness. Γ = 1 means that no hidden bias exists,
whereas increasing values of Γ imply an increasing influence of unobserved characteristics in the treatment selection. The data source is the industrial firm census
data compiled annually by the National Bureau of Statistics. The definitions of the variables are in Table 1.

4. Concluding remarks

China has become the leading ISO 14001 adopting country in the world. In this study, we investigate how ISO 14001 adoption affects
performance of Chinese firms. Our analyses show that ISO 14001 adoption does not have a significantly positive impact on Chinese firms'

Table 10
Implicit benefits of ISO 14001 adoption.

OLS IV Estimation: 2nd-stage

Export ratio Environmental inspections Export ratio Environmental inspections

[1] [2] [3] [4]

Firm's adoption of ISO 14001 0.043*** −0.292* 0.122*** −1.945*

(0.016) (0.175) (0.038) (1.142)
Firm size 0.006 0.161*** 0.025*** 0.386***
(0.005) (0.059) (0.005) (0.110)
State ownership −0.101*** −0.126 −0.105*** −0.249
(0.020) (0.166) (0.012) (0.269)
Private ownership −0.142*** 0.263* −0.132*** 0.361*
(0.016) (0.136) (0.012) (0.210)
HHI in 2-digit industry of the city −0.041 −1.182** −0.114*** −1.601**
(0.034) (0.508) (0.029) (0.775)
Growth rate of 2-digit industry in the city −0.001 −0.106 −0.005 0.108
(0.005) (0.220) (0.006) (0.320)
Financial leverage 0.017 −0.054 0.007 0.055
(0.014) (0.232) (0.017) (0.390)
Advertising expenditure −0.002 −0.022 −0.009*** −0.048
(0.001) (0.025) (0.002) (0.039)
Total factor productivity −0.006* 0.107* −0.008* 0.199**
(0.003) (0.064) (0.004) (0.101)
Publicly listed firm −0.207 0.165
(0.280) (0.411)
Pollution discharge fee in 2004 0.129*** 0.143**
(0.034) (0.059)
Environmental report 0.556*** 1.416***
(0.139) (0.404)
Constant 0.576*** 0.938 0.500*** −2.682***
(0.080) (1.087) (0.076) (0.980)
2-Digit industry fixed effect Yes Yes Yes Yes
Provincial fixed effect Yes Yes Yes Yes
Year fixed effect Yes No Yes No
Number of obs. 3651 1268 3651 1268
R2 0.282 0.267 0.264 0.190

Notes: Column 1 and Column 2 report the results with OLS regression, while Column 3 and Column 4 report the second-stage results with IV estimation. With regard to
IV estimation, the instrumental variable passed the weak IV tests (the Cragg–Donald Wald F statistic is 710.07 in export ratio specification, and 46.90 environmental
inspections specification, both larger than the critical value of Stock–Yogo weak IV test, i.e. 16.38), though they are not tabulated here. The data sources include
both the survey conducted by China Center for Economic Research in 2006, and the industrial firm census data compiled annually by the National Bureau of
Statistics. The definitions of all variables are in Table 1. *** p b 0.01, ** p b 0.05, * p b 0.1. Standard errors are in parentheses.
 W. He et al. / China Economic Review 32 (2015) 43–56 55

financial performance in terms of ROA, ROE, and ROS. This finding has been further supported by analyses using the instrumental
variable technique and propensity score matching method.
Our finding is consistent with the literature on the relationship between “best environmental management” practices and corporate
financial performance. For instance, Christmann (2000) found that “best practice” environmental management does not significantly
contribute to cost advantages, which cast doubt on the broad application of these environmental certifications that were considered
to provide environmental protection and increased competitiveness. In addition, Darnall, Henriques, and Sadorsky (2008) indicated
that voluntary practices of environmental management might provide financial gains in the short run by increasing a firm's external
legitimacy instead of improving its internal efficiency.
We further investigate possible explanations for the insignificant relationship between ISO 14001 adoption and financial indica-
tors. Our results reveal that there is a simultaneous increase in sales and costs after ISO 14001 adoption. The adoption of ISO 14001
enhances a firm's sales, but also requires substantive costs, such as pollution abatement equipment expenditures, pollution control
and prevention costs, initial adoption and maintenance fees, staff environmental training costs, etc. Because many Chinese firms
have few historical investments in environmental management, the costs of ISO 14001 adoption may be higher for Chinese firms
than for firms in developed countries. This difference may explain why the conventional cost-saving benefits provided by ISO
14001 adoption (Christmann, 2000; Hart & Ahuja, 1996; Klassen & McLaughlin, 1996) have not been observed among Chinese firms.
Given that ISO 14001 adoption does not bring financial gains to firms, why have so many Chinese firms adopted it? We find that ISO
14001 adoption may promote a firm's export ratio because it helps to overcome the ‘green’ entry barrier set by developed countries. In
addition, we also find that ISO 14001 certification can act as a positive signal for environmental compliance; therefore, it provides relief
from coercive environmental inspections by the government. These non-financial benefits, which are rarely discussed in the previous
literature, help to explain why Chinese firms are actively pursuing the ISO 14001 certification.
Our study has several managerial implications. First, adopting ISO 14001 may cater to customers' preference for green products and
therefore enhance a firm's sales revenue. Moreover, it assists in overcoming the ‘green’ trade barrier set by developed countries and can
lead to an increase in exporting. In addition, the adoption of ISO 14001 may qualify firms to establish a cooperative relationship with
multinational firms, which often have requirements for a green supply chain.
Second, the Chinese government is expending additional efforts on environmental protection and imposing coercive environmental
inspections on firms, and may disrupt a firm's daily operation. The adoption of ISO 14001 can act as a signal of environmental compli-
ance, and alleviate coercive governmental inspections. Therefore, given the underlying benefits, managers in Chinese firms have a strong
incentive to consider adopting the ISO 14001 standard.
Finally, the diffusion of ISO 14001 in China relies on local institutional pressure and government policy, which is quite distinct from
the voluntary or mimetic adoption in developed countries. The local governments themselves are also involved in the political com-
petition for environmental improvement. Therefore, the ISO 14001 certification is not only a hard-won opportunity for managers to
expand their potential market, but also adheres to the government propaganda. As a result, the local government may provide
adopting firms with financial subsidies and technical support.
With regards to the limitations of our current work, we are still not able to evaluate if the promotion of ISO 14001 is desirable from
a social welfare perspective. Our paper shows that the ISO 14001 standard has insignificant effects on a firm's financial performance
while still providing implicit non-financial benefits. Nevertheless, from the perspective of the entire society, the overall social benefits
of ISO 14001 adoption may be greater than the costs. Our data are insufficient to examine this issue, so a more detailed society-wide
cost–benefit analysis is required in the future to bridge the gap.

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