2026/04/19 by Li Jin, Jialin Hu · 1 voice
Business, Management and Accounting · Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Environmental Sustainability in Business #Digital Economy and Work Transformation #Sustainable Finance and Green Bonds
paper · doi:10.1080/1369118x.2026.2659279
openalex publication_date 2026/04/19 · openalex created_date 2026/04/20 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
Amid accelerating climate pressures, firms in fragmented and uncertain regulatory environments confront persistent informational ambiguity in pursuing green transformation. To understand how such ambiguity is mediated in practice, this study investigates how state-operated environmental microblogs function as institutionalized digital infrastructures shaping corporate green transformation in China. Drawing on incomplete information theory and platform governance, we theorize two complementary mechanisms – policy signalling under regulatory uncertainty and reputational pressure through public visibility – that recalibrate firms’ strategic responses via enhanced interpretive clarity and legitimacy evaluation. Using a panel dataset linking 3.4 million Weibo posts to 3851 listed firms (2007–2023) and a staggered difference-in-differences design with extensive robustness checks, we find that platform exposure promotes corporate green transformation, reflected in increased environmental investment and improved disclosure quality along distinct signalling and reputational pathways. These effects are strongest when content is original, multimedia-rich, and socially influential, and among firms with higher regulatory salience. Our findings suggest that state-embedded digital platforms reshape the state-market interface by enabling governance to operate through interpretive alignment and reputational visibility rather than command-based regulation, advancing understanding of platform infrastructures as tools of non-coercive governance under institutional uncertainty.