Fostering green-tech innovation through digitalization: the role of legitimacy and CEO characteristics. An empirical study of China’s listed companies

Abstract

To explore to what extent and how corporate digitalization navigates green-tech innovation, using the 2011-2021 annual report data for China’s listed companies, the two-way Fixed Effect Model, Mediation Model, and Moderation Model have been applied to test the specific role of digitalization in fostering corporate green-tech innovation. Empirical results suggest that: (a) corporate green-tech innovation increases with the development of digitalization, and green-related organizational legitimacy mediates this process; (b) CEO characteristics significantly and positively moderate the relationship between digitalization and green-tech innovation, while CEO overconfidence negatively moderates the relationship between conformity legitimacy and green-tech innovation; (c) the moderating role of CEO characteristics changes with the differentiation of industry and property rights. Our empirical evidence shows that digitalization acts as an enabler of corporate green-tech innovation, and also highlights the efficacy of CEOs in this process.