Can Corporate Digitalization Promote Green Innovation? The Moderating Roles of Internal Control and Institutional Ownership

Digital capability and green innovation: The perspective of green supply chain collaboration and top management's environmental awareness

The emergence of the digital economy has accelerated digital transformation, and digitalization has shown new potential and solutions to increasingly severe environmental challenges. Based on the resource-based view, dynamic capability view, synergy effect and upper echelons theory, the connotation and measurement dimensions of digital capability and green supply chain collaboration are defined and improved. Then, a theoretical model of "digital capability-green supply chain collaboration-green innovation performance" is constructed. The influence mechanism and transmission process of digital capability on green innovation performance from the perspective of green supply chain collaboration is discussed. Meanwhile, the boundary condition of the influence of digital capability on green innovation performance in the view of top management's environmental awareness is explored. Finally, an empirical test is conducted based on the Chinese manufacturing corporates. The results indicate that green innovation performance is significantly and favorably impacted by digital capability, green supply chain collaboration plays a partial mediating role between digital capability and green innovation performance, and top management's environmental awareness can positively moderate the effect of digital capability on green innovation performance. This study offers valuable theoretical and practical enlightenments for manufacturing companies to foster the growth of green innovation through digital capability more effectively.

Corporate digital transformation, internal control and total factor productivity

Based on Resource-based theory and Internal Control (IC) theory, this study elucidates the impacts of corporate digital transformation on total factor productivity, and IC effectiveness, as well as the mechanism among digital transformation, IC and total factor productivity. The results show that digital transformation promotes total factor productivity and IC effectiveness. And effective IC has a significant mediating effect for the impact of digital transformation on total factor productivity. Heterogeneity discussion shows that compared with high-tech enterprises, in non-high-tech ones, digital transformation increases total factor productivity, and more significantly enhances IC effectiveness, presenting a mechanism that digital transformation facilitates IC, and increases total factor productivity. For non-high-tech enterprises, with higher heterogeneity of executive education backgrounds, digital transformation promotes IC effectiveness and total factor productivity, showing the transmission effect among digital transformation, IC and total factor productivity. Finally, it is suggested that the regulatory authorities advance digital infrastructure construction, to reinforce IC and risk prevention, thereby increase total factor productivity. And enterprises grasp the opportunity of digital economy development, promote the mechanism that digital transformation facilitates IC effectiveness, and increases total factor productivity. Non-high-tech ones motivate digital elements' governance efficacy, optimize executive structure, coordinately promote digital strategy, and help the national economy acquire high-quality development. The study provides enlightenments to achieve high-quality development.

Unraveling the impact of digital transformation on green innovation through microdata and machine learning

How to use digitalization to support the green transformation of organizations has drawn much attention based on the rapid development of digitalization. However, digital transformation (DT) may be hindered by the "IT productivity paradox." Exploring the influence of DT on green innovation, we analyze panel data encompassing A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen spanning the period from 2010 to 2018. It tests the DT's non-linear impact, employing a random-forest and mediation effect models. The results reveal that (i) DT can promote green innovation; (ii) regarding heterogeneity, the promotion effect is mainly manifested in enterprises in non-state-owned and highly competitive industries; (iii) based on mechanism testing, DT relies on two routes to encourage green innovation: improving environmental information disclosure and reducing environmental uncertainty; and (iv) random-forest analysis shows that DT exhibits an inverted U-shaped non-linear effect on green innovation, including the "IT productivity paradox." This study enhances the existing discourse on DT and green innovation by furnishing empirical substantiation for the non-linear influence exerted by DT on green innovation. Furthermore, it imparts insights into the mechanisms and contextual limitations governing this association.

Celebrity CEOs, digital transformation and firm performance in China: the moderating role of controlling shareholders and institutional investors

Background

business leaders' social status significantly impacts companies' strategic direction and performance. Digital transformation, an important tool for companies to enhance competitiveness and resilience, plays an important role in the relationship between executive background and firm performance.

Objective

To investigate the impact of celebrity chief executive officers (CEO) on firm performance through digital transformation.

Method

Using data from companies listed on the main boards of the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges between 2017 and 2021, this study explored the relationship between celebrity CEOs, digital transformation, and firm performance.

Result

Celebrity CEOs significantly enhanced a firm's digital transformation. However, this effect weakened when controlling shareholders and institutional investors held more shares. Additionally, the study showed that celebrity CEOs can improve firm performance through digital transformation. These findings were robust across a range of sensitivity analyses.

Conclusion

This study contributes to understanding celebrity CEOs' decision-making motivations and economic impacts from a psychological perspective while also providing valuable insights for driving digital transformation within companies.

Firms' digitalization in manufacturing and the structure and direction of green innovation

Green innovation will be one of the main drivers of future economic development. In the current wave of digital transformation, there is a paucity of literature that considers how corporate digital transformation affects green innovation and the characteristics of green innovation. Based on the data of China A-share listed manufacturing companies from 2007 to 2020, we find that digital transformation significantly improves corporate green innovation. This conclusion is robust to a series of robustness tests. The mechanism analysis finds that digital transformation promotes green innovation by increasing the investment of innovation resources and reducing the cost of debt. We further find that digital transformation significantly increases the number of citations of green patents, reflecting the pursuit of "quality" of green innovation by enterprises. At the same time, digital transformation is conducive to the simultaneous improvement of "source reduction" and "end-cleaning" green innovation, reflecting the combination of different pollution governance methods at the source and end of the enterprise. Finally, digital transformation can sustainably improve the level of green innovation. Our findings provide useful insights for promoting green technology innovation in emerging markets.

Impact of enterprise digitalization on green innovation performance under the perspective of production and operation

Introduction

How enterprises should practice digitalization transformation to effectively improve green innovation performance is related to the sustainable development of enterprises and the economy, which is an important issue that needs to be clarified.

Methods

This research uses the perspective of production and operation to deconstruct the digitalization of industrial listed enterprises from 2016 to 2020 into six features. A variety of machine learning methods are used, including DBSCAN, CART and other algorithms, to specifically explore the complex impact of enterprise digitalization feature configuration on green innovation performance.

Conclusions

(1) The more advanced digitalization transformation the enterprises have, the more possibly the high green innovation performance can be achieved. (2) Digitalization innovation is the digitalization element with the strongest influence ability on green innovation performance. (3) As the advancement of digitalization transformation, enterprises should also focus on digitalization innovation input and digitalization operation output, otherwise they should pay attention to digitalization management and digitalization operation output.

Discussion

The conclusions of this research will help enterprises understand their digitalization competitiveness and how to practice digitalization transformation to enhance green innovation performance, and also help the government to formulate policies to promote the development of green innovation in the digital economy era.

How Does an Environmental Information Disclosure of a Buyer's Enterprise Affect Green Technological Innovations of Sellers' Enterprise?

With rapid economic development, green technological innovations are playing an important role in the sustainable development of enterprise. When the public is concerned about the environment and values environmental information disclosures, it makes enterprise fulfill their environmental responsibilities. In a supply chain, buyer enterprise' environmental information disclosures have a spillover effect on seller enterprise' investment decisions. This study investigates the relationship between environmental information disclosures by buyers and green technological innovations of sellers, furthermore, it analyzes the mechanism of this relationship. For this purpose, this study conducts a fixed regression analysis using the data pertaining to A-share listed companies in China from 2009 to 2019. The results show that buyer firms' environmental information disclosures can significantly promote the green technological innovations of seller enterprise. Furthermore, financing constraints, public concern, and internal control play a mediating role between buyer firms' environmental information disclosures and seller firms' green technological innovations. This study reveals several paths through which environmental information disclosures of buyers influence sellers' green technological innovations in supply chains.

Going Abroad and Going Green: The Effects of Top Management Teams' Overseas Experience on Green Innovation in the Digital Era

Green innovation has become one of the most important approaches to achieving sustainable development in modern business. Top management team (TMT)'s overseas experience, as one type of unique resources, constitutes the cognitive basis of the team and thus influences firms' strategic decision-making. Based on the upper echelon theory, this study aims to investigate the effect of TMT's overseas experiences on green innovation performances. By utilizing a panel dataset of Chinese listed firms, this study shows that TMTs' overseas experience indeed promotes firms' green innovation performance and that both firms' digital transformation and regions' digital economy development positively moderate the relationship between TMTs' overseas experience and green innovation. These findings not only help managers better organize the TMT and green innovation strategy but also draw policymakers' attention to the importance of the digital economy and sustainable development.

Corporate Digital Transformation and Green Innovation: A Quasi-Nature Experiment from Integration of Informatization and Industrialization in China

In the era of the digital economy, the rise and application of digital technologies have led to a series of systematic changes and disruptive innovations within enterprises. Based on the quasi-natural experiment of "Integration of Informatization and Industrialization", this paper examines the economic consequences of digital transformation from the standpoint of corporate green innovation, utilizing China's listed manufacturing firms as the research object. Using the DID model, it is discovered that through the implementation of corporate digital transformation, the output of green innovation increases significantly. The conclusions are still robust when using the parallel trend test, PSM-DID, placebo test, and the test of deleting the sample entering the pilot in the current year. Extended analyses find that corporate digital transformation has a greater effect on green innovation in regions with weaker digital economy, in industries with less rivalry, and in firms with larger size. The conclusions of this paper not only advance research on digital transformation and its economic consequences, but also provides theoretical proof and practical insights for advancing corporate digital transformation and enhancing the green development system.

Digital Transformation on Enterprise Green Innovation: Effect and Transmission Mechanism

With the development of blockchain, big data, cloud computing and other new technologies, how to achieve innovative development and green sustainable development in digital transformation has become one of the key issues for enterprises to obtain and maintain core competitiveness. However, little of the literature has paid attention to the impact of digital transformation on enterprise green innovation. Using the data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2020, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of enterprise digital transformation on green innovation and its transmission mechanism, by constructing double fixed-effect models. The results show that digital transformation has remarkably promoted the green innovation of enterprises. R&D investment, government subsidies, and income tax burden have played a conductive role between digital transformation and enterprise green innovation. Furthermore, digital transformation can significantly promote the high-quality green innovation of enterprises and also plays a more significant role in promoting the green innovation of high-tech enterprises and state-owned enterprises. A robustness test is carried out by using the lag data and changing the measurement methods of the dependent variable and independent variables, and the research conclusions are still valid. Based on resource-based theory and dynamic capability theory, this paper reveals the impact path of digital transformation on enterprise green innovation, further expanding the research field of digital transformation and enriching the research on the influencing factors of enterprise green innovation. This paper provides policy suggestions for the government to improve the enterprise green innovation level by increasing government subsidies and providing tax incentives and also provides reference for digital transformation enterprises to accelerate green innovation by increasing R&D investment, obtaining government subsidies, and acquiring tax policy support.

Does the Environmental Regulation Intensity and ESG Performance Have a Substitution Effect on the Impact of Enterprise Green Innovation: Evidence from China

Against the background of green and sustainable development strategy, it is an effective way to carry out green innovation to cope with the increasing intensity of government environmental regulation for enterprises. Nevertheless, the regulatory role of ESG performance has been ignored. Based on panel data from Chinese listed companies from 2010 to 2019, this paper mainly studies whether the environmental regulation intensity and ESG performance have a substitution effect on the impact of green innovation by constructing a double fixed effect model. The empirical results showed that first, positive ESG performance is conducive to promoting green innovation. Second, there is a U-shaped relationship between the intensity of environmental regulation and high-quality green innovation, which reflects the effect of “offset before compensation”. With the increasing intensity of environmental regulation, high-quality green innovation tends to crowd out low-quality green innovation, which further improves the practical test of the “Porter Hypothesis”. Third, the positive ESG performance showed a negative regulatory effect between environmental regulation intensity and enterprise green innovation, which means that environmental regulation intensity and ESG performance have a substitution effect, and the effect is heterogeneous in different enterprises. This paper makes a beneficial exploration on how environmental regulation intensity and ESG performance affect enterprise green innovation, and demonstrates the regulatory role of ESG performance between environmental regulation intensity and green innovation, which reveals the impact of macro environmental policies on the green innovation behavior of micro subjects, and contributes to the further improvement of ESG concept and green innovation theory.

Insight into the Balancing Effect of a Digital Green Innovation (DGI) Network to Improve the Performance of DGI for Industry 5.0: Roles of Digital Empowerment and Green Organization Flexibility

Under the background of double carbon target and digital intelligence era, the innovation resources and innovation environment that manufacturing enterprises rely on have shown exponential growth. Digital green innovation (DGI) has gradually become the mainstream paradigm of innovation. How to achieve a balance between a local DGI network (LDGIN) and a remote DGI network (RDGIN) and how to use the role of digital empowerment and green organization flexibility to improve the performance of DGI are very important issues facing manufacturing enterprises at present. However, this problem has not been fully addressed in the existing research. In this study, the influence mechanism of LDGIN and RDGIN on the DGI performance of manufacturing enterprises was revealed, considering the moderating role of digital empowerment and green organization flexibility. The linear regression method was used to analyze the 562 valid data obtained by questionnaire survey. The results of this study are as follows. The effect of the DGI network on manufacturing enterprises’ DGI performance is heterogeneous because of LDGIN and RDGIN. The establishment of embedded links in a DGI network inevitably requires manufacturing enterprises to pay the corresponding costs. The over-embedding of manufacturing enterprises into RDGIN will have a negative impact on DGI performance. The balance between LDGIN and RDGIN has an important impact on manufacturing enterprises’ operation. The comprehensive balance and relative balance indexes constructed in this paper show that an appropriate balance can promote the improvement of the DGI performance of manufacturing enterprises. Digital transformation and organizational structure innovation are changing the business model of manufacturing enterprises and can regulate the relationship between the LDGIN and RDGIN and the DGI performance of manufacturing enterprises. The balance of DGI network embedding in practice shows the important role and enlightening significance of local and remote search in developing countries.

Can Digital Transformation Promote Green Technology Innovation?

Using the index of the degree of digital transformation of enterprises constructed based on text analysis, and combining the data of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2020, a panel data model was established to empirically study the impact of digital transformation on green technology innovation and the mechanism of action and to further analyze the impact of heterogeneity. The results show that digital transformation can significantly promote green technology innovation, and its internal mechanism is that digital transformation can improve the level of green technology innovation by alleviating financing constraints and attracting government subsidies. Compared with nonstate-owned enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises, digital transformation plays a more significant role in promoting green technology innovation in state-owned enterprises and large-scale enterprises. Therefore, the government should regulate the market order and formulate reasonable financial policies to provide policy and financial support for enterprises to carry out digital transformation, mobilize the willingness of enterprises to carry out green technology innovation and improve the level of green technology innovation in China.

Executive Overconfidence, Digital Transformation and Environmental Innovation: The Role of Moderated Mediator

With the increasingly prominent energy and environmental problems, environmental innovation has become a critical path to achieving the goal of coordinating economic development and environmental protection fundamentally. This study aims to examine the impacts of executive overconfidence on environmental innovation and the mediating role of digital transformation. We conduct empirical tests based on the panel data of Chinese publicly listed enterprises during the period of 2007–2019. The results exhibit that (a) executive overconfidence can significantly promote environmental technology innovation but has no obvious effect on environmental management innovation; (b) executive overconfidence can significantly enhance digital transformation, and, accordingly, digital transformation can significantly promote environmental technology innovation and environmental management innovation; (c) industry competition and economic policy uncertainty can enhance the positive effect of executive overconfidence on digital transformation; and (d) a firms’ asset size can enhance the impact of digital transformation on environmental technology innovation; internal control positively moderates the impact of digital transformation on environmental technology innovation and negatively moderates the impact on environmental management innovation. This study not only breaks the stereotype about overconfidence and confirms its positive impact on digital transformation and environmental innovation but also provides insights for enterprises to improve environmental innovation through digital transformation.