The Supply Chain Transmission Effect of ESG Performance of Listed Companies—A Study on the Asymmetric Impact on the Innovation of Upstream and Downstream Enterprises

The supply chain is the basic organizational form of enterprises’ economic activities, yet the transmission effect of ESG performance within this organizational form has long not received sufficient attention. Taking Chinese A-share listed companies and their supply chain partners from 2007 to 2024 as the sample, this paper conducts an empirical test using a two-way fixed effects model. The study finds that the ESG performance of focal firms significantly promotes the innovation of downstream customers, while its impact on upstream suppliers is not significant, presenting a clear asymmetric pattern. The mechanism test shows that market power and analyst attention play a positive mediating role only on the downstream side. The heterogeneity analysis further reveals that the transmission effect is stronger in contexts such as non-state-owned enterprises, high-tech industry matching, and low customer dependence. This paper provides new evidence for understanding the supply chain spillover effect of ESG and has policy implications for guiding enterprises’ green transformation and innovation collaboration.