Abstract:
In the era of digital economy, digital transformation is becoming a new engine for firm innovation. At the same time, the national strategy of carbon peak and carbon neutrality puts forward new goals and new requirements for firms’ green innovation. However, little research has investigated the dialectical relationship between digital transformation and corporate green transformation. From the perspectives of strategic management, resource-based view and institutional logic, this study employed a multi-sourced dataset covering 1 016 public listed manufacturing firms from 2011 to 2019 and used big data mining and negative binomial regression model to explore the relationship and mechanism between firm digital transformation and green technological innovation, as well as the contingent role of the nature of property right. Empirical results show that: (1) Digital strategy significantly improved the level of green technology innovation of enterprises; (2) Digital resource investment mediated the effect of digital strategic transformation on promoting corporate green technological innovation; (3) Further analysis found that the state of equity had played a moderating mediation effect on the intermediary relationship: compared with state-owned enterprises, private enterprises had higher efficiency in the transformation stage of digital resource investment to green technology innovation. The robustness test finds that the significant impact of digital transformation strategy and resource input on corporate green technological innovation still existed in the medium term, with a continuous enabling effect. There was no difference between state-owned enterprises and private enterprises in terms of the relationship between digital transformation and green technological innovation in the medium and long term. Further, introducing keyword text networks to explore the structural impact of digital strategy, this study finds that digital product and manufacturing strategy were effective strategic dimensions to enhance green technology innovation capability, and digital financial strategy and digital marketing strategy had no direct promotion effect on green technology innovation of enterprises. From perspectives of resources, strategy and institution, this study opens the black box of the promotion effect of corporate digital transformation on green technological innovation. Moreover, this research provides essential theoretical enlightenment about the role of digitalization in corporate green innovation. Also, it gives decision-making suggestions for the government to encourage enterprises further to seize the opportunity of industrial digitalization and accelerate the realization of carbon peak and carbon neutrality.