Disentangling the influence of internationalization on sustainability development: Evidence from the energy sector
研究了287家能源上市公司，发现国际化水平越高，环境管理越好，但对环境绩效影响不显著；向发展中国家扩张时，环境管理改善更明显，不支持污染避难所假说。
Abstract This paper aims to deepen our understanding of the relationship between firms' internationalization and their sustainability development. We expected firms with a higher level of internationalization to exhibit better environmental management and performance. A sample of 287 publicly traded firms in the energy and energy‐related utilities sector was used to test these relationships. We focused on the energy sector, as energy production and supply have historically accounted for the lion's share of global greenhouse gas emissions. We found that firms' level of internationalization had a positive effect on their environmental management, whereas its effect on environmental performance was not found to be significant. We also tested whether these relationships change when firms' internationalization is oriented towards developing countries. Upon a closer look, the relationship was found to be significant between internationalization towards developing countries and better environmental management, thus contributing to the line of literature that does not support the pollution haven hypothesis.