The Implicit Contract between Government and Enterprises and Environmental Responsibility under External Pressure

Abstract: Realizing the goal of "dual carbon" requires not only the call of macro policies, but also the response of micro enterprises. In this paper, we take SMEs as the research object, embed the relationship between government and enterprises in the research framework of "pressure and enterprise behavior", and study the influence of external pressure on enterprises' environmental responsibility, and the moderating role of the implicit contract between government and enterprises in the process. Using data from the 12th National Private Enterprise Survey (CPES), we find that: (1) external environmental pressure is an important motivation for firms to assume environmental responsibility; (2) the implicit contract between the government and the enterprise, represented by the government-enterprise relationship, in fact assumes the role of government regulation, which strengthens the facilitating effect of the external pressure on the environmental responsibility of the firms. Extended analyses show that: from the perspective of promoting environmental responsibility, whistle-blowing has a substitution relationship with external pressure, and whistle-blowing has a stronger disciplinary effect than fines; when entrepreneurs obtain government-enterprise relations with public interest, environmental responsibility under external pressure is less affected by the government-enterprise relations; when entrepreneurs perceive greater government intervention, environmental responsibility under external pressure is more affected by the implicit contract between the government and the enterprise. Theoretically, this paper also contributes to the study of the relationship between the government and the enterprise. This paper contributes to both the "pressure and enterprise behavior" and "government-enterprise relationship and enterprise behavior" literature, and provides reference for guiding enterprises to assume environmental responsibility in reality.