March 2021, paper "Talk the talk, but walk the walk:" by Associate Professor Zeng Quan (second and corresponding author), Professor Xingqiang Du (first author) and 2017 PhD Student Ying Zhang (third author), Department of Accounting/Center for Accounting Development: what do we know about marital demography and corporate greenwashing?" Published in the Journal of Management & Organization.

Abstract of the paper

Using a sample of 21,628 firm-year observations from the Chinese stock market during the period of 2008–2017, this study finds that the divorce–marriage ratio, the proxy for marital demography, is significantly positively associated with corporate greenwashing. This finding suggests that higher divorce–marriage ratio is associated with stronger individualistic social atmosphere, lower conformity to social norms, and more unfavorable attitude towards environmental conservation, abets firms to talk the talk rather than walk the walk, and foments corporate greenwashing. Moreover, China’s Environmental Protection Law attenuates above positive relation. Lastly, our conclusions are robust to sensitivity tests using the divorce rate, alternative proxies for greenwashing, and individual-level divorce data, and further our findings are also valid after addressing the endogeneity issue.

Introduction of the author

Zeng Quan studied at Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics from 2000 to 2004 and obtained his engineering degree, studied at Xiamen University from 2007 to 2009 and obtained his master's degree in Accounting, and studied at Xiamen University from 2009 to 2013 and obtained his Doctor's degree in accounting.He joined the Department of Accounting, School of Management, Xiamen University in August 2013 and has been an associate professor since August 2016. His research focuses on accounting and auditing in capital markets.Courses taught include intermediate financial accounting, accounting principles, cost accounting, etc.Research papers have been published in the Journal of Management & Organization, Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics, Journal of Business Ethics, Financial Research, Chinese Accounting and Finance Research, Economic Management and other academic journals.He has presided over several projects include National Natural Science Foundation, Humanities and Social science projects of the Ministry of Education, and social science planning projects of Fujian Province.He has won the special prize of Fujian Province teaching achievement and the third prize of Fujian Province Social Science Outstanding achievement.