a b s t r a c tPrior stock price peaks of targets affect several aspects of merger and acquisition activity. Offer prices are biased toward recent peak prices although they are economically unremarkable. An offer's probability of acceptance jumps discontinuously when it exceeds a peak price. Conversely, bidder shareholders react more negatively as the offer price is influenced upward toward a peak. Merger waves occur when high returns on the market and likely targets make it easier for bidders to offer a peak price. Parties thus appear to use recent peaks as reference points or anchors to simplify the complex tasks of valuation and negotiation.

This study investigates the role of state ownership in green innovation from the institutional complexity viewpoint. We posit that state ownership can be characterised by two seemingly competing logics: institutional logic, which emphasises that firms with state ownership can acquire resources to promote innovation; and efficiency logic, which states that firms with state ownership have low resource utilisation effectiveness. On the basis of the integration of both views, we suggest a U‐shaped curvilinear relationship between state ownership and green innovation. Data from Chinese listed firms from 2003 to 2015 confirm our hypothesis. Moreover, we also find two macro‐level contingencies that moderate this relationship: regional innovation readiness and industrial competition. The U‐shaped relationship between state ownership and green innovation is more pronounced when regional innovation readiness and industrial competition are higher. This study advances previous research on environmental innovation by arguing that state ownership is characterised by institutional complexity rather than being a monolithic construct.

This article investigates the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in eco‐innovation from the triple bottom line perspective. We unpack CSR into three dimensions (financial, social, and environmental) and categorise eco‐innovation into two kinds (pollution prevention and sustainable environmental innovation) to get a comprehensive picture of the relationship. Drawing on the resource‐based view, we suggest that the environmental dimension of CSR is positively related to pollution prevention because the returns on this kind of innovation are more predictable and straightforward, which appeals to firms. We also suggest that there is a U‐shaped relationship between the environmental dimension of CSR and sustainable environmental innovation, as this kind of innovation can only be realised when environmental commitments are high. Moreover, we expect the social and financial dimensions of CSR to interact with the environmental dimension to affect eco‐innovation. Using Chinese firm data from 2011 to 2015, we find that the social and financial dimensions of CSR have a positive moderating effect on sustainable environmental innovation. However, we fail to find support for their moderating effect on pollution prevention. Theoretical and practical implications, based on the findings, are discussed.

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This paper investigates how analyst categorisation hierarchies (CH) affect corporate social responsibility (CSR) conformity. We argue that firms that are labelled as either high rank or low rank by analysts have higher institutional immunity, while firms that are categorised as middle rank have lower immunity. These heterogeneous institutional immunities will affect the levels of CSR conformity differently. Our results, which originate from a sample of Chinese listed firms from 2009 to 2016, suggest that CH exhibit an inverted‐U‐shaped relationship with CSR conformity. High‐ranked and low‐ranked firms are most likely to be CSR nonconformist, while middle‐ranked firms tend to conduct CSR like the majority of their industry peers. Moreover, we also investigate the environmental boundary conditions of this curvilinear relationship. This relationship is moderated by environmental munificence (positively) and dynamism (negatively). Our findings fill the theoretical gap by proposing an institutional‐based explanation for the CSR conformity heterogeneity which is rarely discussed and extending the boundary conditions for the categorisation‐CSR conformity relationship.