Digital transformation, corporate social responsibility and green technology innovation- based on empirical evidence of listed companies in China

Abstract

Green technology innovation is an inevitable requirement to promote the realization of double carbon goal and realize sustainable development. It is also a vital accelerator for the transformation and upgrading of economic structure to promote the high-quality development of national economy. This article empirically testifies the impact path of corporate digital transformation level on green technology innovation ability, from the perspective of green technology innovation, based on the A-shares of 2660 manufacturing companies listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen between 2015 and 2020 by using a fixed-effect zero-inflation negative binomial regression model. Digital transformation can enhance enterprises' green technology innovation capability, according to the results, and several robustness tests have confirmed this finding. By improving corporate social responsibility, corporate digital transformation enhances green technology innovation capability. When it comes to the heterogeneity of corporate digital transformation's promotion of green technology innovation, compared to large enterprises, SMEs have an obvious advantage. Non-heavy polluting industries are significantly higher than heavy polluting firms while heavy polluting firms are not able to innovate using green technologies as a result of enterprise digital transformation.