In the context of open innovation and sustainable development, firms' sustainable innovation has a far-reaching impact on ensuring the long-term viability of firms, helping firms obtain competitive advantages, and thus achieving sustainable development. Meanwhile, as an important external technology acquisition mode, the technology integration capability can affect the enthusiasm and sustainability of firms' further innovation. Therefore, how to reasonably use technology integration capability to help firms' sustainable innovation is increasingly important. However, the prior research on technology integration capability neglects that excessive technology integration capability may reduce the enthusiasm and sustainability of innovation of firms. Thus it is urgent to discuss whether and how technology integration capability affects firms' sustainable innovation. Then in the setting of dual carbon and high-quality development, green patent quality is the core indicator to measure the quality of patents with green technology as the theme of the invention.It is vital for the achievement of the dual carbon goals and firms' sustainable development to find out how to use technology integration capability to improve green patent quality and then help firms' sustainable innovation. But the existing research is unclear on how the technology integration capability affects green patent quality and whether it will further affect firms' sustainable innovation. Third, under the background of open innovation and sustainable development, the 2-model alliance innovation network is composed of the firms participating in the alliance, their affiliated alliances and the affiliation relationship between firms and the alliance, and it is an important channel for the firms participating in the alliance to obtain external technology and other resources. The firm's centrality in the 2-mode alliance innovation network is an important indicator that describes the numbers of subordinate alliances of firms in the 2-mode alliance innovation network. It reflects the firm's position characteristics and power among participants at different levels in the 2-model alliance innovation network. According to the social network theory and resource-based theory, firms with higher centrality in the 2-model alliance innovation network can obtain or use more high-quality innovation resources and innovation policies faster by close contact and communication with more related firms and alliances. However, the possible moderating effects of the firm's centrality in the 2-mode alliance innovation network on the relationship among technology integration capability and green patent quality, technology integration capability and firms' sustainable innovation are still unclear.
Addressing the above issues, this study for the first time integrates technology integration capability, green patent quality, and firms' sustainable innovation into the same research framework. Meanwhile, following the dynamic capability theory, firm sustainable innovation theory, green technology innovation theory, social network theory, etc, this paper uses the data of 232 high-tech listed firms from 2009 to 2019 and the comprehensive feasible generalized least squares method to explore the internal mechanism and boundary conditions on which technology integration capability influences firms' sustainable innovation.
It is found that technology integration capability has an inverted U-shaped relationship with firms' sustainable innovation; technology integration capability has an inverted U-shaped relationship with green patent quality, and green patent quality plays a mediating role in the inverted U-shaped relationship between technology integration capability and firms' sustainable innovation; centrality plays a positive moderation role in the inverted U-shaped relationship between technology integration capability and firms' sustainable innovation, but it has not played a positive moderation role in the inverted U-shaped relationship between technology integration capability and green patent quality. In short, the conclusions can provide theoretical guidance for high-tech firms to rationally adjust their technology integration capability to improve green patent quality, and then realize firms' sustainable innovation.
The contributions can be summarized as follows. First, this study expands the research scope of the mechanism of technology integration capability, and enriches the research on the motivation of firms' sustainable innovation from the perspective of dynamic capability theory. Second, it breaks through the limitations of existing research on technology integration capability and green patent quality, and opens the "black box" that technology integration capability affects green patent quality. Third, from the perspective of social network theory, it enriches the research on the scenario mechanism of the relationship between technology integration capability and green patent quality, technology integration capability and firms' sustainable innovation.

How to solve the problem of greenhouse gas emissions has become a major issue of global concerns. China's low-carbon development strategy motivates its cities to improve their levels of green innovation. In the future ten to twenty years, most of the national energy demands and greenhouse gas emissions will come from the emerging or developing cities. The energy efficiency technologies will keep providing important technical support before the full coverage of renewable energy technologies. For them, it is of great significance for the green transformation and regional coordinated development of whether and how strong demand for emission reduction can be transformed into energy efficiency technology innovation, and help them catch up with leading cities.#br#Innovation catch-up is defined as the process by which latecomer countries or regions improve their innovation capabilities relative to technology leaders. Regarding the causes of innovation catch-up, the existing studies provide the region's strategic choices and macro technical condition changes as the main reasons. These arguments are more focused on the ex-ante evaluation of innovation catch-up. However, compared with non-green innovations, green innovations have stronger technology complexity, diversity and novelty. High-quality green innovations can enlighten more mature technologies and products in the future. Existing research rarely evaluates the above-mentioned ex-post performanceof green innovation. Besides, the complexity, diversity and novelty of green innovation make its generation process deeply rooted in knowledge networks and cooperation networks, but few studies have explored the relationship between knowledge network, cooperation network and green innovation catch-up. #br#To fill the above research gaps, this paper focuses on green innovation among Chinese cities and tests the relationship among a city's knowledge network, urban cooperation network and its catch-up speed. It selects the patent citation data of fossil-energy-efficiency technologies from 2003 to 2017 and analyzes whether the structural position of a city in the knowledge network and cooperation network will affect its degree growth rate in the citation network. The study has several findings: (1) the city's knowledge diversity, knowledge degree centrality, and knowledge betweenness centrality as well as the internal degree centrality in the cooperation network all promote the city's green innovation catch-up speed, while the external degree centrality of the cooperation network does not show this effect; (2) the city's knowledge diversity and knowledge network centrality have complementary effects in promoting green innovation catch-up speed, the margin effect of knowledge diversity on catch-up speed will increase with the ascension of knowledge network centrality; (3) the complementary effects also exist between knowledge network centrality and cooperation network centrality,and stronger intra-city cooperation will better integrate the knowledge network elements and facilitate the knowledge recombination through intra-city idea exchanges and R&D cooperation.#br#Several policy suggestions are put forward accordingly. (1) The local governments should strengthen the forward-looking guidance of technology development and identify the core knowledge elements as the policy starting point.(2) They should also encourage regional scientific and technological cooperation, and promote regional agglomeration to boost the exchange of innovative ideas. (3) The “matrix-like” innovation policies to expected are activate the synergistic coupling effect between the institutional facility and advanced technology identification.#br#This paper may make contributions in the following three aspects. First, it introduces the network perspective to analyze green innovation catch-up, integrates the knowledge network, cooperation network, and citation network into a unified analysis framework, and tests the complementary effects among them. Second, it connects the ex-ante evaluation of innovation with the ex-post evaluation, where the knowledge and cooperation network that form the basis and process of patent generation belongs to the ex-ante perspective, while the location change in the citation network belongs to the ex-post assessment. Third, it focuses the research units on the city level, coordinates the theories of economic geography and innovation management, and provides policy suggestions about the development of green technology for local governments from the perspective of knowledge and technology guidance and regional innovation cooperation.#br#

Influenced by the “carbon peak and carbon neutrality” strategy, green technology innovation has become an important support for the nation to achieve the strategic goal of industrial optimization and upgrading. For how to effectively drive regional industrial upgrading, the theoretical circle has actively explored from different dimensions such as income distribution, institutional environment, technology spillover, factor endowment structure and financial science and technology, but the existing studies have generally ignored the huge impact of green technology innovation on regional industrial upgrading with the economic growth targets. In fact, the change of economic growth targets is bound to have a huge impact on many local economic decisions and behaviors, which will inevitably affect the industrial upgrading effect of green technology innovation. However up to now, few literatures have given a positive response to the internal relationship among economic growth targets, green innovation and industrial upgrading. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to systematically deconstruct the practical problem of the industrial upgrading and innovation effect of green technology innovation under the constraint of economic growth targets,so as to effectively realize the “win-win” of green technology innovation and regional industrial upgrading and development in the “14th Five-Year” period.#br#On the basis of China' s provincial panel data from 2004 to 2020, an empirical analysis is made from multiple perspectives. In order to comprehensively depict the potential impact of economic growth targets on green technology innovation to assist industrial upgrading, the study first examines the direct impact of green technology innovation on industrial upgrading and establishes a model; furthermore it uses the Hansen's panel threshold regression method to reveal the nonlinear evolution of the impact of green technology innovation on industrial upgrading with the moderation of different economic growth targets.The results show that firstly, green technology innovation has significantly driven local industrial upgrading, and this conclusion is still valid after a series of robustness and endogenous tests. Secondly, the industrial upgrading effect of green technology innovation has a significant triple threshold effect based on the constraint of economic growth targets. Under the constraint of economic growth targets, the impact of green technology innovation on industrial upgrading shows a significant positive and diminishing marginal efficiency. Thirdly, there are significant differences in the dynamic adjustment effect of economic growth targets on green technology innovation-enabled industrial upgrading. To achieve the optimal adjustment effect, the eastern region needs to adopt lower constraint of economic growth targets than the central and western regions, and the areas with high degree of industrial upgrading also needs to choose looser constraint of economic growth targets than the areas with the middle and low degrees of industrial upgrading.#br#According to the above conclusions, the following policy implications are presented. Firstly, it is essential to further accelerate the development of green technology innovation, promote the deep integration of green technology innovation and regional industrial upgrading in various fields and links, and improve the actual efficiency of green technology innovation in driving regional industrial upgrading; secondly, at this stage, it is necessary to gradually and moderately relax the constraint of economic growth targets, and avoid the loss of industrial upgrading dividends enabled by green technology innovation due to excessively stringent economic growth targets; thirdly, different regions should choose the appropriate constraint of economic growth targets according to their own green technology innovation and industrial upgrading development reality.#br#Compared with previous studies, this paper makes innovations in three aspects. Firstly it broadens the existing research perspective and reveals how the constraint of economic growth targets dynamically moderates the industrial upgrading effect of green technology innovation from the perspective of nonlinear dynamic evolution, so as to advance the in-depth understanding of the internal logical relationship among the three. Secondly by depicting the dynamic impact effect and heterogeneous facts of the constraint of economic growth targets, it can provide decision-making reference for the government to design more targeted linkage strategies between economic growth targets and green technology innovation in promoting local industrial upgrading.#br#

In the context of the strategic goal of “carbon peak and carbon neutrality” and green development, enterprise green innovation as the golden key to achieving “double carbon” and sustainable development is not only a significant national concern， but also a hot academic topic. Influenced by the digital technology revolution and COVID-19, the market, industry and environment in which enterprises are located are constantly changing, and there are higher requirements for leaders' ability characteristics as to how to combine limited resources with dynamic opportunities, embed digital technology into organizational development, and optimize enterprise management practices. In recent studies, it has been found that digital leadership integrates digital technology and leadership, and it demonstrates the ability of leadership to actively embrace the digital revolution, motivate employees to innovate, quickly adapt organizational structures and processes to adapt to changes in the digital environment, and promote enterprise innovation. In the digital age, the question of how leaders build a digital leadership pedigree that adapts to the times, drives enterprises to upgrade related technologies to meet corresponding environmental standards, and effectively stimulates green innovation has become an urgent topic.#br#This study explores the impact mechanism between digital leadership and green innovation, and examines the mediating role of green organizational identity and the moderating role of digital threat, as well as the multiple concurrent causal relationships that trigger green innovation. In order to better understand the statistical relationship and the set relationship between variables, the study adopts a mixed method with structural equation model (SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method. Data from 238 questionnaires is collected at two different time points. The findings indicate that the four dimensions of digital leadership can positively influence green innovation; green organizational identity plays a partial mediating role between the four dimensions of digital leadership and green innovation; digital threat has a negative moderating effect between digital leadership and green organizational identity, and it moderates the partial mediating effect of green organizational identity in digital leadership and green innovation. Further, the fsQCA method is used to analyze the causal complexity of digital leadership dimensions, green organizational identity and digital threat to green innovation, and nine effective configuration paths are identified. This shows that the combined effect of the four dimensions of digital leadership is the key factor to trigger the high green innovation of enterprises. At the same time, the study verifies the conduction effect of green organizational identity among the four dimensions of digital leadership and green innovation. This shows that digital leaders should not only combine relevant policies to build a vision of digital change and environmental management, but more importantly, work with organizational members to promote the digital transformation and sustainable development, so as to better understand technology and change management.#br#Following upper echelons theory, organizational identity theory, and cognitive appraisal of emotion theory, this study constructs the relationship framework of “digital leadership—green organizational identity—green innovation”. It explores the internal mechanism of digital leadership and green innovation. This study makes several contributions to the existing research. First, it defines digital leadership and divides it into four parts. On the basis of upper echelons theory,it explores the impact of digital leadership on enterprise green innovation, which will not only enrich the relevant research of leadership, but also expand the antecedents of green innovation. Second, it elaborates the digital leadership mechanism of green innovation, and reveals the mediating role of green organizational identity, and improves the marginal contribution of organizational identity theory in the field of green innovation. Third, digital threat is introduced as a moderating variable to broaden the boundary conditions of digital leadership for enterprise green innovation. Fourthly, the fsQCA method is used to analyze the antecedents of green innovation based on the empirical research. In summary this study provides reference for enterprises to trigger green innovation development.#br#

The business practices show that the traditional extensive economic development can't be sustained. For enterprises in heavily polluting industries,it is imperative to adhere to innovation-driven development strategy and attach great importance to environmental protection to achieve green transformation and upgrading. The green innovation strategy refers to the incorporation of green innovation practices into the strategic framework of enterprises,which is regarded as an important forward-looking environmental strategy. However,different from traditional innovation,green innovation takes into account the ecological environment,with a longer innovation cycle and higher uncertainty. These factors undoubtedly increase the opportunity cost of green innovation strategy implementation. In addition,due to the organizational profit and resource specificity,enterprises generally lack the motivation of sustainable innovation. It is necessary to consider the risk of green innovation strategy implementation with the constraint of organizational resources. The organizational slack can provide the possibility for the implementation of high-risk innovation activities. Therefore,it is of great practical significance to explore whether and how organizational slack promotes the green innovation strategy of enterprises.#br#Existing literature has conducted intense discussions on the value effect of slack resources,but has not reached a consistent conclusion. Many studies based on the organizational theory believe that organizational slack provides enterprise more options for investment projects and thus motivates enterprise to implement green innovation strategy. Other studies based on the resource constraint theory believe that organizational slack makes enterprises satisfied with the status quo,and weakens the motivation to respond positively to market changes. In addition,organizational slack leads to the dispersion of management investment objectives,resulting in behavioral friction,and hindering enterprises from carrying out green innovation activities. The reasons for the conflict may lie in that firstly existing empirical studies are from the comprehensive perspective of listed companies as a whole or a certain industry such as manufacturing,but less pertinently consider the special sample of enterprises in heavily polluting industries. Secondly,existing studies ignore that question whether different stages of organizational slack can be effectively transformed to risk-taking,which to some extent limits the important play of enterprise initiative during the green innovation practices. In addition,existing studies ignore digital environment is an important situational factor of enterprise strategy. On one hand,digital technology improves the dynamic deployment efficiency of internal resources and optimizes the way to acquire innovative resources. On the other hand,the digital environment has also revolutionized the way of market competition and further aggravated the risks of green innovation.#br#With the integration of the resource constraint theory and the organizational theory,this paper takes the 2013-2020 Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed enterprises in heavily-polluting industries as samples to explore the influence of organizational slack on green innovation strategy. It introduces risk-taking as a mediating variable,and constructs a modeled mediation model to examine the contextual role of the digital environment. The research indicates that organizational slack has a U-shaped relationship with green innovation strategy and risk-taking；risk-taking has a mediating effect in this process; digital environment positively moderates the U-shaped relationship between organizational slack and green innovation strategy,and has a positive effect on the mediating effect of risk-taking between absorbed slack and green innovation strategy. #br#Compared with previous research,this study centers around the heavily polluting industries and finds a new relationship between organizational slack and green innovation. Moreover,it takes "resource-capacity-behavior" as the overall logic,introduces risk-taking capability as mediating variable,and investigates whether different stages of slack can be effectively transformed to risk-taking,so as to promote green innovation strategy of enterprises. It makes up for the lack of the mechanism research in the existing literature. Finally,this study focuses on the green innovation strategy research under the background of digital economy,expands the boundary conditions of the impact of organizational slack on the green innovation strategy by incorporating digital environment variables into the analysis framework,and constructs a mediation model to investigate the comprehensive effect of enterprise risk-taking and digital environment on green innovation strategy.#br#

The key to green and low-carbon economic development is to integrate the "double carbon" goal and green technology innovation with the economic development goal. Enterprise green and low-carbon transformation is an important carrier of environmental protection and technological innovation behavior; however, in practice most enterprises lack the sustainable driving force of green and low-carbon transformation, and most Chinese enterprises have to invest a large amount of capital in the early stage without satisfactory output. The market mechanism alone is unable to activate green and low-carbon transformation, and thus the government incentives for the enterprises to realize technological progress towards green and low-carbon transformation become particularly important. The existing studies mostly focus on the impact of environmental goals or government environmental responsibility on enterprise green innovation, but the impact of combining environmental goals with government environmental responsibility assessment on enterprise green innovation is still unclear. Besides,researchers mostly focus on the impact of environmental decentralization on enterprise green innovation, or the impact of environmental protection input on enterprise green innovation without consideration of the mediating role of environmental protection input between environmental decentralization and enterprise green innovation. It is also unclear whether the constraint of environmental goals can mediate the role of government environmental protection input and enterprise environmental protection input between environmental decentralization and enterprise green innovation. In view of this, this paper provides an empirical analysis to remedy the above deficiencies. #br#Through the theoretical analysis, this study clarifies the relationship among green and low-carbon transition, environmental decentralization, enterprise environmental investment, government environmental investment and green innovation, and puts forward the research hypotheses. In the empirical test, this study selects 668 A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2011 to 2017 as the samples. On the important premise of achieving the goal of green and low-carbon transition, this study explores the impact of environmental decentralization on corporate green innovation by using the multiple parallel moderatedmediation model. The results show that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental decentralization and enterprise green innovation. Moderate environmental decentralization can effectively improve the level of enterprise green innovation, while the incentive distortion under a system with excessive environmental decentralization is not conducive to enterprise green innovation. The conclusion of the impact of environmental decentralization on enterprise green innovation remains valid with consideration of endogeneity.From the perspective of patent types, environmental decentralization has a greater impact on the proportion of green invention patent applications in comparison with the proportion of green utility model patent applications (0.241, -0.100). In addition, the goal constraint of green and low-carbon transition makes the inverted U-shaped relationship curve between environmental decentralization and enterprise green innovation steeper, and higher environmental goal constraint makes an earlier inflection point of the inverted U-shaped relationship. #br#The mechanism analysis shows that government environmental protection input and enterprise environmental protection input play a mediating role in the influence of environmental decentralization on enterprise green innovation. Moreover, there is a threshold effect between government environmental input and enterprise environmental input on environmental decentralization and enterprise green innovation. When the levels of government environmental input and enterprise environmental input are high, environmental decentralization has a significant promoting effect on enterprise green innovation, and vice versa. At the same time, the goal constraint of green and low-carbon transition strengthens the mediating role of government environmental investment in environmental decentralization and enterprise green innovation.#br#Thus it is proposed that the central government should appropriately strengthen the responsibility in environmental affairs, improve the incentives of environmental affairs, and set a reasonable level of environmental decentralization, so as to effectively promote enterprises to improve the level of green innovation. Meanwhile, it is suggested that the impact of environmental decentralization on enterprise green innovation with enterprise heterogeneity and regional heterogeneity can be further analyzed in future studies, and the roles of central environmental protection input, local environmental protection input and enterprise environmental protection input in the impact of environmental decentralization on enterprise green innovation could be further subdivided.#br#

Green innovation is characterized by its wide range of applications, and it is often used as inputs by other industries, and spawns new innovations in the application field. To achieve high-quality development, green innovation is a must. From the perspective of sustainable development, it is necessary to use technological means and innovative production capacity to promote green development, so the support of green technological innovation is inseparable. Furthermore, promoting green technology innovation will demand immense investment, which requires green financial support. At the same time, Chinese investors are paying more and more attention to corporate social responsibility, and take it seriously when making investment decisions, especially its environmental connotation which requires enterprises to reduce damage and pollution by technological innovation, upgrading, reducing energy consumption and emissions, etc., instead of sacrificing the environment for economic benefits.#br#On the basis of theories of information asymmetry, legitimacy, corporate innovation and ecological modernization, this paper analyzes the impact of investor attention on green innovation, the mediating effect of financing constraints, and the moderating effect of environmental regulation, and proposes three hypotheses. It employs the panel data of China's A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2020, the Internet search index as a proxy variable for investors' attention, and the number of corporate green patents as a proxy variable for green innovation performance to systematically discuss whether investors'attention could promote innovation performance and transmission path. Based on previous conclusions, this study subdivides attention dimension, industry dimension, and regional dimension for further analysis, and conducts replacement test and lag test to prove the rationality of the conclusion.#br#It is found that first, investor attention can significantly improve the green innovation capability of listed companies, which is reflected in the quantity and quality of green innovation. Second, financing constraints play a significant intermediary role between investors' concerns and green innovation performance. Investors' attention to companies can alleviate information asymmetry, reduce financing constraints and stimulate the vitality of green innovation. Third, environmental regulation can be used as an effective moderator to enhance the role of investors in green innovation of enterprises. If the local environmental regulation is rigid, the company will be more sensitive to investors' concerns and promote green technology innovation. Fourth, the negative attention of investors has a greater effect on the green innovation performance of enterprises than the positive attention, indicating that the negative public opinion of investors has caused certain pressure on enterprises and urges enterprises to carry out green innovation. The degree of informatization in the eastern areas is relatively high, so investor attention has a greater impact on green innovation compared with that in the west. In terms of industry heterogeneity, the impact of investor attention on high-polluting industries on green innovation performance is significantly lower than that in non-high-polluting industries, and high-polluting enterprises are not inclined to green innovation under the pressure of investors' attention.#br#This paper strives to make new expansions on the basis of existing research. It innovatively combines investor attention with green innovation performance. In addition, this paper also considers that investors' attention to enterprises can be divided into positive attention and negative attention, and further analyzes the subdivision dimension of investors' attention attributes. Then, this paper introduces the intermediary variable of financing constraints to study the transmission mechanism. It has studied the impact of media and other information intermediaries on corporate innovation, but has not clarified the intermediate mechanism, and has not explored the impact of retail investors' behavior on online platforms on corporate green innovation performance at a micro level. Therefore, adding the mediation effect can strengthen the ductility of the logic chain and make the article more persuasive. Environmental regulation is an external factor of the enterprise, affecting the green innovation activities of enterprises, so that the paper is more capable to reflect the current state of the economy and society. It can also promote the diversification of research related to the green innovation of enterprises, and provide feasible and targeted suggestions for enterprises to undertake social responsibilities and achieve sustainable development. At the same time, research on the social concern of corporate green governance can effectively trace the feasible path of environmental governance, which is conducive to a more comprehensive and profound understanding of the role of investors' concerns in corporate social responsibility and the promotion of online public opinion on corporate development and even the macro economy.#br#

With the rapid development of global economy, the increasingly serious greenhouse effect poses a great threat to the survival and development of human society. It has become a global issue of how to effectively control the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. To this end, China has pledged to reach the "dual carbon" goals, and proposed to speed up the green transformation of its development mode and promote green and low-carbon economic and social development. As the combination of green development and innovation-driven development concepts, green technology innovation plays an irreplaceable role in improving carbon emission efficiency and promoting the green transformation and upgrading of the economy. Therefore, under the background of realizing "dual carbon" goals and promoting high-quality economic development, it is helpful to explore effective ways to improve carbon emission efficiency from the perspective of green technology innovation and avoid the extensive development model of low resource utilization efficiency and heavy environmental pollution by studying the impact mechanism of green technology innovation on carbon emission efficiency. Moreover, it has important theoretical significance and practical values for accelerating the green transformation and upgrading of industrial structure, building a green, low-carbon and circular economic development system, and realizing the "dual carbon" goals.#br#From the perspectives of invented and improved green technology innovation, this paper uses the panel data of 30 provincial regions in China from 2006 to 2020 to analyze the impact of green technology innovation on carbon emission efficiency, and draws the following conclusions. (1) Both invented and improved green technology innovation are beneficial to the improvement of carbon emission efficiency on the whole, and the improved green technology innovation has a greater effect on the improvement of carbon emission efficiency. At the regional level, invented and improved green technology innovation have significantly promoted the improvement of carbon emission efficiency in the eastern and western regions, and the promotion effect of improved green technology innovation on carbon emission efficiency is greater than that of invented green technology innovation, but it is not significant in the central region. (2) Both environmental regulation and industrial structure upgrading have partial mediating effects on the impacts of invented and improved green technology innovation on carbon emission efficiency, while urbanization has the masking effect on the impacts of invented and improved green technology innovation on carbon emission efficiency. (3) The influence of invented and improved green technology innovation on carbon emission efficiency is moderated by energy intensity, and its marginal influence is changed from promotion to inhibition with the increase of energy intensity, that is, the influences of invented and improved green technology innovation on carbon emission efficiency present a clear "rebound effect". At the same time, the "rebound effect" of invented green technology innovation on carbon emission efficiency is greater than that of improved green technology innovation.#br#Compared with the existing studies, the marginal contribution of this paper is mainly reflected in three aspects. Firstly from the perspective of green patent types, this paper provides a causal identification of the internal mechanism of green technology innovation to improve carbon emission efficiency, and it further explores which is more conducive to improving carbon emission efficiency: invented green technology innovation or improved green technology innovation. Secondly by introducing environmental regulation, urbanization and industrial structure upgrading as mediating variables, it analyzes the transmission mechanism of the relationship among invented and improved green technology innovation and carbon emission efficiency, and reveals the indirect action mechanism of invented and improved green technology innovation to promote the improvement of carbon emission efficiency. Lastly this paper explores the "rebound effect" of different types of green technology innovation on carbon emission efficiency, and further uses a partially linear functional-coefficient model to carry out a visual analysis of the "rebound effect". By the end,it provides useful reference for promoting green low-carbon transformation of Chinese economy and realizing "double carbon" goals.#br#

In the past few decades, global environmental pollution continues to worsen and climate-related natural disasters occur frequently, compelling governments around the world to shift their focus from traditional productivity-driven innovations to sustainable growth-oriented green innovations. As the main body of innovation, enterprises are an important force leading green innovation. Enterprises rarely carry out spontaneous green innovation, and prefer to carry out green innovation under the guidance of the government. The institutional theory holds that institutional changes affect the strategic choices of enterprises. As a strategic choice of enterprises, green innovation is inevitably affected by the relationship between government and business. In 2016, General Secretary Xi Jinping first proposed a new type of relationship, with the features of being 'close' and 'unsullied'. Being 'close' requires government officials to act, take responsibility, and take the initiative tosolve the difficulties encountered by enterprises in the development process; being 'unsullied' requires the government to adhere to impartiality in law enforcement when dealing with enterprises, and prevent corruption. The new government-business relationship can not only urge the government to be proactive, but also facilitate the healthy development of enterprises under the guidance of the government.#br#Existing studies have explored the impact of the new government-business relationship on firms competitive advantage, performance robustness, investment efficiency and general innovation strategies. However, there is still a lack of systematic theoretical explanation and empirical evidence for the relationship between the new government-business relationship and green innovation of enterprises.Thus this study uses the green patent data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2017 to 2019 to empirically test the impact of the new government-business relationship on the green innovation of enterprises.#br#The findings of this study are as follows. First, the new government-business relationship not only promotes the quantity of the green innovation of enterprises, but also significantly improves the quality. From the economic point of view, every one per cent increase in the new government-business relationship can increase the number of green patents and green invention patents of local enterprises by 0.61 and 0.41 on average, respectively. Moreover, this promoting effect is more obvious in the sample of private enterprises. Second, the mechanism test shows that the new government-business relationship promotes green innovation by helping enterprises obtain government innovation subsidies and reducing the uncertainty faced by enterprises in innovation activities. Third, further research shows that the new government-business relationship can help the government realize the original policy intention of promoting the green innovation of enterprises by using environmental regulation.#br#The following policy recommendations are put forward. On the premise that the market plays a decisive role in resource allocation, the government must clearly define the scope of its power and governance boundaries and be both 'close' and 'unsullied' in its dealings with enterprises, which is conducive to promoting the construction of a new type of government-business relationship. At the same time, the government should actively encourage officials to contact and visit local enterprises on a regular basis to truly understand the difficulties and needs of enterprises in the process of green innovation. This will not only help the government provide more targeted government resources for enterprises, but also improve the motivation of enterprises to take the initiative to carry out green innovation.#br#This research contributes to the literature in three ways. First,the research findings of this paper broaden the application boundary of institutional theory. Most of the existing literature have found that the government-business relationship has a negative effect on corporate innovation from the perspective of political association. This empirical analysis provides empirical evidence for the government to promote green innovation through the construction of the new government-business relationship. Second, this paper reveals the mechanism of the new government-business relationship affecting enterprise green innovation, expands the research on the new government-business relationship, and provides a theoretical explanation for the government-driven corporate green innovation. Third, no unified conclusion has been reached on the impact of existing environmental regulation policies on green innovation of enterprises. This paper finds that the new government-business relationship can help the government achieve its original policy intention of promoting green innovation through environmental regulation, thus providing new empirical evidence for the Porter hypothesis.#br#

Environmental pollution has become a major threat to human survival. In order to achieve high-quality economic development and environmental protection, green innovation that takes into account economic and environmental benefits is an inevitable choice for enterprises. Green innovation is an essential part in dealing with climate change, and it has important practical significance for realizing sustainable economic development. As an information and governance mechanism, corporate information transparency plays an important role in resolving the difficulties in the financing and investment of green innovation.#br#This paper analyzes the impact of information transparency on the green innovation of heavily polluting enterprises from the internal and external perspectives with the samples of the listed heavily polluting enterprises in Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2011 to 2020. The results show that information transparency can significantly improve the green innovation performance of heavily polluting enterprises. Environmental protection concern from the government and the public can play a positive role in the relationship between information transparency and green innovation of heavily polluting enterprises. The mechanism test results show that information transparency mainly affects the green innovation performance of heavily polluting enterprises by alleviating external financing costs and promoting internal green innovation willingness.#br#This study makes several contributions to the literature. Firstly, it examines the impact of information transparency on alleviating the “resource” and “willingness” barriers to green innovation in heavily polluting enterprises from the perspective of information mechanisms for the first time, and enriches relevant theories. At the same time,information transparency has both internal and external functions which deserve further attention from the academic community. Secondly, this paper further incorporates external institutional factors into the research framework, analyzes the moderating effect and environmental effect of the “formal institution” of government environmental protection concern and the “informal institution” of public environmental protection concern, which can be conducive to inspiring the enthusiasm of enterprises in green governance, and provides supports for promoting green innovation from the government and public levels. At the same time, it has promoted the integration of institutional theory, information asymmetry theory, and corporate governance theory, as well as the development of relevant research. Thirdly, it provides a foundation for the government to play the role of “supporting hand”, improve and optimize supervision and governance so that enterprises are guided to provide detailed and standardized accounting information disclosure, and maintain high level ofinformation transparency, which has certain practical significance.#br#According to the research conclusions, the following policy implications are drawn. Firstly, it is essential to improve the transparency of corporate accounting information and the tolerance of green innovation failure. The information mechanism plays a supporting and rectifying role in green innovation, and can help heavily polluting enterprises realize green transformation through multiple effects. Therefore, enterprises should improve their internal control and information transmission mechanisms, create a good foundation for information to play a real and effective role, and then promote green innovation of enterprises. In addition, enterprises should correctly understand the incentive and protection roles of information transparency for company managers, and improve the tolerance of green innovation failure through theinformation mechanism. Secondly, the government should give full play to the roles of “guide” and “supporter”. On the one hand, the government should actively explore reasonable environmental protection regulatory measures, and keep optimizing them; it is worth noting that given the heterogeneity of enterprises, local governments should adopt policies tailored to local conditions. On the other hand, the government should increase the investment and support for enterprise green innovation.Thirdly, it is critical to integrate green innovation into public life, broaden the channels for public participation in environmental protection, and improve the public communication and feedback mechanism. Relevant government departments should give publicity to a green lifestyle, and encourage the public to take environmental protection participation as their own responsibility; they also need to improve the environmental petition system, encourage the public to express their opinions through the media and other channels, and further strengthen the information interaction among the government, enterprises and the public so as to benefit the green development process of enterprises.#br#

With the increasing awareness of environmental protection in all walks of life, the green development of enterprises is getting more and more attention. Only by integrating the green and low-carbon sustainable development strategy into the development of enterprises can enterprises gain market recognition and competitive advantages, and enterprises' green transformation shall take a long time. The most effective way for enterprises to respond to environmental regulations (ER) is to implement environmental strategies (ES) and carry out green technological innovation (GTI). Among them, according to the different subjects and forms of constraints, this paper divides environmental regulation into command and control environment regulations (CAC), market-based incentive(MBI) and voluntary environmental program(VEP). According to the purpose and direction of its implementation, environment strategy is divided into reactive (RES) and proactive (PES) types. On one hand, existing research has gradually shifted from a single regulatory influence to a multi-regulatory composite analysis, while the attention to regulatory constraints is mostly influenced by the government, and corporate spontaneous constraints are less, and thus it is necessary to sort out the effects and differences of heterogeneous environmental regulations. On the other hand, most studies focus on the overall driving mechanism and effect of environmental strategies, ignoring the fact that enterprises dynamically adjust environmental strategies, and cannot explain the mechanism of differences in environmental performance caused by coordinating dual environmental strategies under different scenarios. In addition, less attention is paid to the impact on response regulation, strategic decision-making and behavioral performance of enterprises due to their differences in life cycle stages. Therefore drawing on the natural resource base view and institutional theory, this paper constructs a research framework of "environmental regulation—environmental strategy—green technology innovation" according to the heavily polluting manufacturing listed companies in China and discusses how enterprises can respond to heterogeneous environmental regulations and promote green technology innovation by coordinating dual environmental strategies.#br#The sample companies are determined by referring to the Environmental Information Disclosure Guide of Listed Companies in 2010 and the Industry Classification Standard issued by China Securities Regulatory Commission in 2012, and the sample data of 358 companies from 2013 to 2020 are selected from China Environmental Statistics Yearbook and CNRDS database, with a total of 2 864 valid observation results.#br#The findings are as follows. (1) Environmental regulation has a positive impact on environmental strategy. VEP has the highest importance to each strategy, and it has a higher impact on PES than RES; CAC has a greater impact on RES while MBI is more important to PES. (2) There are differences in the promotion effects of various environmental regulations on green technological innovation. MBI is the most important, followed by VEP and finally CAC. (3) Environmental dual strategy plays a mediating role in environmental regulations and green technological innovation. Various ER affect GTI by affecting RES and PES; both RES and PES promote GTI, and PES is more important. (4) For enterprises with different life cycles, in the process of ER driving ES, there is no significant difference in the promotion effect of CAC in each life cycle stage; the promotion effect of MBI on ES in growth period is stronger; VEP has a stronger effect on the implementation of RES in mature stage and PES in recession stage, and in the process of ES driving GTI, the positive effect of RES in mature period is higher than in other periods; the positive effect of PES in recession period is the greatest. In the process of ER to promote GTI, the promotion effect of growing enterprises under the influence of various ER is stronger.#br# By dividing the subject and form of constraints,this study explores the driving effects of different types of environmental regulations on enterprise environmental dual strategy and green technology innovation, and reveals the performance from external systems to internal strategies. It further expounds the differences of environmental dual strategy in regulating and influencing green technological innovation from the dual strategic perspective, the natural resource-based view and etc.,improving the practical understanding of environmental strategy and enriching the theoretical value and applied research of dual strategy. Moreover with the effectiveness analysis of the driving mechanism of green technology innovation in different enterprise life cycle scenarios, the research perspective of green technology innovation has been expanded.#br#

As China endeavors to achieve a comprehensive green transition，it is now actively exploring the path of coordinated development of economy and environment, in which innovation is constantly emphasized as the driving force for leading development and as an important impetus for achieving coordinated development of economy and environment. The green technology innovation is the double benefit of both technology progress and environment protection, and it is an effective means to encourage the green innovation activities of enterprises and realize the win-win of economic development and environment protection. At the same time, with the continuous increase of innovation incentives, China's innovation quantity has ranked first in the world, but in contrast the quality of innovation in China lags behind, and the core technology bottlenecks seriously threaten the economic security. Therefore China is in urgent need of transformation to an innovation power. In this context, it is of great practical significance for China to explore how to improve the quantity and quality of green innovation.#br#In the market economy, it is difficult for enterprises to carry out green innovation input spontaneously based on their own interests, hence it has become a hot topic of how to encourage enterprise green innovation in the academic field. Existing studies have found that environmental regulations have important impacts on enterprise innovation, and environmental regulation policies are vital for government to stimulate enterprise innovation, but there are significant differences among different policy instruments, the innovation incentive mechanism of environmental regulation tools is different and influenced by the external conditions. So how should the government choose the environmental regulation tools toachieve appropriate supervision intensity, so as to achieve positive incentives for green innovation? At the same time, with the advent of the digital economy, the digital economy has reshaped the economic structure and changed the innovation paradigm by virtue of its high permeability, intensive knowledge creation and extensive empowerment. The existing literature finds that the development of the digital economy promotes technological innovation, and studies its indirect impact on innovation based on the enabling role of the digital economy and changes in market conditions. Then how will the incentive mechanism for innovation of various environmental regulatory instruments change?#br#To answer this question, this study uses the panel data of A-share listed companies from 2013 to 2019 as samples, and employs the fixed panel model and the panel threshold model, to empirically analyze the direct impact of three environmental regulatory tools and the digital economy on the quality and quantity of green technology innovation, and the incentive effect of different regulatory tools on green innovation in the digital economy. The innovation incentive effect of regulatory instruments is compared based on the different scale of enterprises.#br#The results confirm that market-based regulation promotes the quality and quantity of green technology innovation of enterprises, while order-based regulation promotes the quantity of green technology innovation, but it has no significant effect on quality, while public participation-based regulation has no significant effect on the quality and quantity of green technology innovation. It's also found that the digital economy can promote the quality and quantity of green technology innovation of enterprises, the incentive effect of market incentive regulation on the quality and quantity of green technology innovation, and the incentive effect of imperative regulation and public participation regulation on the quantity of green innovation; the incentive effect of restraining public participation regulation on green innovation quality is the same as that of dictating regulation. The heterogeneity test results show that the incentive effect of environmental regulation tools on green innovation is various for enterprises of different sizes, and large enterprises have innovation strategy rigidity.#br#This study has the following highlights. First, different from the existing research on green technology innovation, this paper starts from the quality and quantity dimensions of green innovation to make a deep analysis of environmental regulation tools and the digital economy on its direct impact. Secondly, it takes the digital economy as the external condition and brings it into the impact mechanism of environmental regulation tools on enterprise green innovation. Finally, compared with most existing literature which uses macro-data to analyze heterogeneity from the geographical point of view, this paper uses the micro-listed enterprise data to explore the heterogeneity of different enterprise sizes and puts forward more targeted recommendations.#br#

Green technology innovation can enable enterprises to carry out green production to reduce costs and gain competitive advantages, and transfer green technology to obtain transfer benefits and produce technology spillover effects.It can provide the residents with green products and a green environment. Thus, green technology innovation is the consensual goal of environmental regulation policy to achieve “innovation compensation” and is a key part of supporting green and high-quality development. However, the validity of “Porter hypothesis” is still controversial in the academic community. #br#This study uses a synthetic control method to circumvent the sample selection bias and policy endogeneity that may exist in previous policy assessment methods. The most applied method in the research on the assessment of the effects of ecological civilization construction policies is the difference-in-differences method. However, the division of treatment and control groups is subject to regional heterogeneity, and it may easily lead to sample selection bias in policy assessment. The green patent data of 30 provinces from 2010 to 2020 is studied based on the policy of ecological civilization construction to verify the “Porter hypothesis” validity. The study aims to provide a theoretical reference for the provincial governments to choose their environmental policies prudently.#br#The results show that the ecological civilization construction policy can promote green technology innovation in Fujian, Jiangxi, and Guizhou, among which Jiangxi and Guizhou have responded quickly and shown the policy effect since the implementation of the ecological civilization pilot demonstration zone in 2013, while Fujian was relatively slow and the policy effect was presented only after the implementation of the ecological civilization pilot zone in 2014. Overall, the policy effects in Fujian and Jiangxi are relatively good, while the policy effects in Guizhou are relatively weak. The three provinces do not have the same driving force to promote green technology innovation in accordance to the same ecological civilization construction policy. Fujian is mainly dependent on the science and technology funding, Jiangxi is mainly driven by the effect of basic research and environmental infrastructure, and the effect of science and technology talents is significant in Guizhou. The different driving forces also bring differences in the green technology innovation effects of the three provinces in terms of innovation patent categories. For Guizhou, driven by the science and technology talent effect, the ecological civilization construction policy has significantly pushed up the number of green invention patents instead of the number of green utility model patents, mainly by increasing the number of science and technology talents. Since 2013, the policy has had varying degrees of success in different regions. Fujian has been driven by science and technology funding, while Jiangxi has focused on basic research and environmental infrastructure. However, in Guizhou, the quality and incremental effects of green technology innovation are relatively weak. The quality and quantity effects of green technology innovation are both significant, but the quality effect lags by one year compared with Guizhou.#br#In summary, the quality improvement effect of green technology innovation can be rapidly brought about by the effect of scientific and technological talents. However, the injection of scientific and technological talents alone cannot bring about the multiplier spillover effect, thus sacrificing the incremental effect. Although the effect of environmental infrastructure will lag behind the quality improvement effect, green technology innovation can be driven by the two wheels of incrementaleffect and quality improvement in the long run. Meanwhile,the ecological civilization policy can promote green technology innovation in Fujian and Jiangxi. In contrast, the policy effect in Guizhou is weaker because Guizhou's science and technology talent-driven strategy has only aqualitativeeffect but not a quantitative effect compared to those of Fujian's science and technology funding and Jiangxi's basic research and environmental infrastructure-driven strategy. Thus, the central government should continue the ecological civilization construction, fully exploit the stimulating effect of environmental policies on green technological innovation and promote green development accordingly. The provincial governments should fully consider the characteristics of their resource endowment, comprehensively consider the advantages and disadvantages of each driving model, and keep the driving force suitable for the development according to the local conditions.#br#

Green start-ups are currently regarded as a key instrument in solving environmental issues, but they are difficult to come into existence due to the dual restrictions of environmental externalities and liability of newness. Exploring the driving forces of green start-ups has always been an important issue in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship. In recent years, the birth and development of the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship (KSTE) has provided new ideas for the foundation of green start-ups. The implementation of empirical analyses on the creation of new firms through the lens of KSTE has pointed out that new environmental technologies are the main source of entrepreneurial opportunity in the low carbon economy transition. However, the existing research mainly analyzes the mechanism of environmental technology scale on the foundation of green start-ups, and also makes a differentiation analysis on different types of technologies (dirty technologies and clean technologies; university environmental technologies, research institute environmental technologies and firm environmental technologies) or start-ups (green start-ups, brown start-ups and gray start-ups; green start-ups and non-green start-ups), but it has not yet been able to reveal the mechanism of environmental technology structure on the foundation of green start-ups. Compared with technological scale, technological structure is more critical in driving innovation growth. It can be seen that the role of a single technology is limited, and a technology library without global deployment is like a mess of sand. Optimizing the technical structure and layout is the key to promoting the country's long-term development.#br#Therefore, this paper divides environmental technology diversification into two modes of related environmental technology diversification and unrelated environmental technology diversification, and explores the mechanisms of environmental technology diversification on the foundation of green start-ups by using a panel dataset of Chinese provinces during the period of 2014-2020 and negative binomial regression models. The results show that related and unrelated environmental technology diversification can significantly promote the foundation of green start-ups through knowledge spillovers.Due to the proximity of cognition, related environmental technology diversification has stronger knowledge spillovers, which makes it more effective in promoting the foundation of green start-ups. Additionally, related and unrelated environmental technology diversification can promote green patent applications through knowledge spillovers. Both green patent applications and green start-up creation need the support of green R&D resources, which makes green patent applications crowd out green start-ups. Finally, green patent applications have a negative indirect effect on the relationship between related (unrelated) environmental technology diversification and the foundation of green start-ups; besides due to the close connection between related environmental technology diversification and the original environmental technologies, the newly generated green knowledge is less expanded and the incumbents are very easy to set up knowledge spillover barriers by strategically applying for green patents to reduce the knowledge spillovers of related environmental technology diversification. Therefore, green patent applications negatively moderate the relationship between related environmental technology diversification and the foundation of green start-ups. Unrelated environmental technology diversification less depends on the original environmental technologies, which makes the newly generated green knowledge expand more, and the incumbents are not easy to set up knowledge spillover barriers. In this way green patent applications positively moderate the relationship between unrelated environmental technology diversification and the foundation of green start-ups. In order to promote the diversified serve of environmental technology to green entrepreneurship, the government needs to be aware of the importance of the environmental technology structure to green entrepreneurship, guide innovation subjects to conduct research on related environmental technology diversification around the innovation chain, value chain, industrial chain and other chains, and encourage universities, scientific research institutes and enterprises to carry out green R&D cooperation and，environmental technology research and green industry development. Moreover, the government should respect and grasp the market rules of green innovation and entrepreneurship, macro-control green R&D resources, reasonably allocate them to green innovation and green entrepreneurship, weaken the competition for green R&D resources between green innovation and green entrepreneurship, and promote the coordinated development of green innovation and green entrepreneurship. While the entrepreneurs can take advantage of the positive effects of environmental technology diversification on the foundation of green start-ups, actively seek and find entrepreneurial opportunities in the low-carbon field in regions with high degree of environmental technology diversification to promote the foundation of green start-ups.#br#

Enterprises are the main body of green innovation and the manufacturing industry is the main body of the real economy. It is significant for enhancing the market competitiveness of enterprises, promoting the green transformation and upgrading of the real economy by improving the level of green technology innovation of manufacturing enterprises. At the present stage, China is in an important period of deepening economic restructuring and actively developing a mixed-ownership economy. In order to promote the cross-shareholding and mutual integration of state-owned capital, collective capital and non-public capital, and better combine public ownership and market economy together, it is necessary to integrate non-public capital into state-owned enterprises, and also requires the participation of state capital in non-public economy, which is an important part of the development of mixed ownership economy.#br#Existing studies believe that state-owned equity participation can ease the financing constraints of private enterprises, enhance the risk-bearing capacity, and thus promote the technological innovation of non-state-owned enterprises. However, the impact of state-owned equity on the green innovation of enterprises is rarely explored. Moreover, compared with general technology research and development, externality theory assumes that the uniqueness of green technology innovation lies in the dual-externality and significant knowledge path dependence characteristics; absorptive capacity theory and institutional theory also show that internal absorptive capacity and external environmental governance have important impacts on the green innovation activities of enterprises. In this case, how the participation of state-owned equity affects the green technology innovation of private enterprises and how the interactive relationship between the internal absorptive capacity of private enterprises and the external environmental governance works remain to be further discussed.#br#Therefore this paper tries to answer the following questions. Can state-owned equity participation promote the green innovation and development of private enterprises? What role do the absorptive capacity of private enterprises play? How can the external environmental pressure affect the role of state-owned equity participation on the green technology innovation of private enterprises? On the basis of the green patent data of China private enterprise manufacturing listed companies from 2013 to 2021, this study builds a moderated mediation model to analyze the influence of state-owned equity participation in private enterprise green technology innovation, and explore their own absorptive capacity in the mediating effect, as well as the moderating role of analysts following.#br#It is found that first, state-owned equity participation has effectively promoted the green technology innovation of private enterprises. Next, the improvement is partially mediated by absorptive capacity. At the same time, analyst following helps to leverage the resource acquisition advantage of state-owned equity participation and curb political rent-seeking, and strengthens the mediating effect of the absorptive capacity between state-owned equity participation and green technology innovation. From the characteristics of state-owned equity participation,the central state-owned equity can better promote the green technology innovation of private enterprises compared to the local state-owned equity rights. From the characteristics of private enterprises, it is confirmed that for enterprises in highly polluting industries, when the economic policy uncertainty is high, the participation of state-owned equity plays a more significant role in promoting the green technology innovation of private enterprises.#br#This study makes the following marginal contributions. First, it enriches the relevant literature of mixed ownership reform in enterprise green technology innovation. The study constructs the analysis path of state-owned equity by improving the absorptive capacity of private enterprises and then the performance of green innovation, and expands the research perspective of equity governance under the background of mixed reform from general technology innovation to green technology innovation. Second, this study provides empirical evidence of how to enhance the vitality of state capital and promote the green and sustainable development of mixed-ownership economy. The research conclusions show that the entry of state-owned capital into private enterprises can not only give full play to the advantages of resource acquisition and property rights protection, but also promote the green and healthy development of manufacturing enterprises, thus promoting the green transformation and upgrading of the mixed-ownership economy.#br#

Green technological innovation refers to the technological innovation that aims at protecting the environment, integrating environmental principles in innovation and harmonizing economic benefits, social benefits and ecological benefits of enterprises. It is an important measure to promote energy conservation and emission reduction and build ecological civilization by improving the level of green technology innovation. However, most enterprises show a negative attitude towards the barriers and R&D costs of green technology innovation, which leads to the low level of green technology in China. Therefore it is an important issue for the government to design reasonable policies to encourage enterprises to carry out green innovation activities. The Belt and Road Initiative(BRI) which was proposed by Chinese government in 2013 advocates the concept of low carbon and sustainable development. It puts forward new requirements for the environmental protection work of enterprises, while encouraging enterprises to participate in BRI. As a top-level national design, BRI provides more support and good opportunities for Chinese enterprises to carry out green innovation activities and enhance their capacity for green innovation. "Going global" is not only an inevitable trend of cooperation, but also an inherent requirement of the BRI. For this reason there are great theoretical and practical significances for China's economic development and inclusive growth by exploring the influence of BRI on enterprise's green technology innovation .#br#Drawing on the data of Chinese listed companies from 2007 to 2020, the study centers on the BRI to conduct a quasi-natural experiment and explores the influence of BRI on enterprise's green technology innovation. This paper proposes that the Belt and Road initiative can improve the reverse knowledge spillover of subsidiaries through two ways: green R & D cost sharing and green R & D achievement feedback. The cooperative R & D between Chinese enterprises and other foreign enterprises has expanded the scale of R & D investment, reduced R & D risks, and improved the success rate of green R & D activities. The feedback of green R & D achievements is a mechanism to use the technologies and resources of countries along the Belt and Road routes to re-integrate the green technology of enterprises in the home country and feed back the R & D achievements to the parent companies. The empirical results show that the BRI significantly improves the enterprise green technology innovation level and the results are still robust after a series of robustness tests such as propensity score matching, placebo test and endogenous processing. The mediating effect test results show that the BRI indirectly improves the enterprise's green technology innovation level by the following three intermediary channels: increasing the environmental expenditure, alleviating financing constraints and increasing the reverse knowledge spillover. Finally, the heterogeneity test results indicate that the BRI has a more significant effect on inland node cities, low clean industries and state-owned enterprises.#br#Compared to the existing related studies, the main contributions of this study are as follows. Firstly, this research provides a new perspective for the impact of macro policies on micro enterprises. Taking BRI as a quasi-natural experiment, the research examines its impact on the green innovation behavior of micro enterprises from multiple angles and provides strong evidence support for the positive economic effect brought by the BRI. Secondly, it enriches the theoretical basis of enterprise green technology innovation. Different from the other literatures, this research examines the green economic effect of the BRI, which enriches relevant researches on the impact of macro policies on enterprise green innovation and provides a new direction for the government to encourage enterprises to carry out green technological innovation activities. Thirdly, it discusses the influence mechanism of macro policy on micro enterprises. The BRI indirectly improves green technology innovation level by improving enterprise's environmental expenditure, easing financing constraints and increasing reverse knowledge spillover, which reveals the basic transmission mechanism of BRI to the green technological innovation of enterprises. The conclusions of this research have certain reference significance for the government to formulate the policies of the BRI.#br#

As one of the urban agglomerations with the highest level of economic development in China, the urban agglomerations of Yangtze River Delta has become an area with a high concentration of problems such as resource shortage, environmental pollution and ecological damage in promoting rapid development of industrialization and urbanization.Green innovation is an effective way to promote the sustainable development of urban agglomerations and coordinate the relationship between ecological civilization and economic growth. It is helpful to promote the green innovation development of urban agglomerations in the Yangtze River Delta by figuring out the temporal characteristics and evolution law of green innovation efficiency. Therefore, this study focuses on the urban agglomerations of the Yangtze River Delta, analyzes the spatial and temporal development characteristics and dynamic evolution process of their industrial green innovation efficiency,so as to further improve the industrial green innovation level of the urban agglomerations of the Yangtze River Delta, promote the differentiated development of various cities, and provide effective reference for promoting the construction of innovative urban agglomeration.#br#In this study, 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomerations are firstly taken as the research object to construct the industrial green innovation efficiency index system of the urban agglomerations of Yangtze River Delta. Secondly, the super-efficiency SBM-DEA model based on the undesired output is used to measure the industrial green innovation efficiency of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomerations from 2010 to 2020. Through the construction of the inverse distance matrix, the global and local Moran's I are used to explore the spatial-temporal differentiation characteristics of industrial green innovation efficiency in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomerations. Meanwhile, the Moran's I scatter plot is further analyzed according to the spatial-temporal analysis method, and the types and paths of its dynamic transitions are studied.#br#The results show that the measurement results of industrial green innovation efficiency in the urban agglomerations of the Yangtze River Delta show a fluctuation trend of "W" in general from the perspective of time series development, and the overall green innovation level of the urban agglomeration of the Yangtze River Delta gradually improves, except that the efficiency value decreases significantly due to the impact of the epidemic in 2020. On the spatial evolution pattern, there is an uneven distribution of green innovation efficiency on the whole space, and high efficiency main cities are gathered in the southeast and northwest area, with more cities of high-high and low-low are of agglomeration types. Besides there is a positive correlation of efficiency in general, and its spatial correlation decreases with time series development. The spatial leap shows high spatial stability, and the "spillover effect" and "siphon effect" coexist, while there are clear spatial aggregation and mobility.#br#Different from previous literatures, this study starts from the micro level of urban agglomeration in Yangtze River Delta. With the adjustment of national planning, the research object is expanded to 41 cities, enriching the research on urban agglomeration in the field of green innovation. At the same time, the influence of resource factors on green innovation efficiency is considered in the selection of input index. In terms of spatial auto-correlation analysis, the dynamic and transition analysis of industrial green innovation efficiency at urban agglomeration level is carried out, and the spatial evolution pattern of prefecture-level cities is analyzed as a unit, which has guiding significance for grasping the law of green innovation development in urban agglomeration. Future study is expected to explore the factors that affect the green innovation efficiency of the urban agglomerations of Yangtze River Delta, and analyze its spatial spillover effect on the green innovation efficiency.#br#

Green technology innovation has become the new engine for high-quality economic development. For heavily polluting enterprises, there are two main paths to green technology innovation: internal environmental investment and green mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Herein, internal environmental investment refers to the enterprise's internal increase in green innovation investment, self-development of energy saving and emission reduction, clean production, and other areas of technology or energy to achieve green development. Green M&A is a type of M&A that incorporates green sustainable development into traditional technology M&A with the goal of energy conservation and environmental protection, as well as green and low-carbon development. In contrast to internal environmental investment, which has long cycles and uncertain outcomes, green M&A is faster and can quickly acquire the target enterprise in clean production. Simultaneously, as the Chinese government pays ongoing attention to environmental protection, more and more heavily polluting enterprises are keen on conducting green M&A.#br#However, the real intentions of heavily polluting enterprises' green M&A are vague. On the one hand, green M&A is essentially a major strategic reorganization behavior of enterprises, and it is a key approach to integrate various resources of the enterprises, modify the development mode, and promote social responsibility. On the other hand, the development of the Chinese capital market has not yet reached the stage of strong effectiveness, and severe information asymmetry still remains for investors, making flimsy M&A possible. As a consequence, the existing literature has not reached a consensus on whether green M&A is to achieve substantial green transformation or merely serve as a tool for strategic response.#br#To address this issue, this study compiles green M&A data from China's heavily polluting industries from 2007 to 2019.It constructs a staggered PSM-DID model to investigate the impact of green M&A on enterprises' green technology innovation and explore if green M&A can affect green technology innovation from the perspectives of internal and external resource support, adopting the green M&A event as a quasi-natural experiment. Furthermore, this study examines whether green M&A has other spillover effects in terms of media coverage, corporate social responsibility, and investor confidence. Taking into account the asymmetry impact of the external environment on the green innovation incentive effect of green M&A, this study also confirms the cross-sectional impact difference of green M&A on enterprise green technology innovation from the perspectives of environmental regulations and media supervision.#br#It is concluded that firstly, green M&A enterprises possess much higher levels of green technology innovation than non-green M&A enterprises. Following a series of robustness tests, it discovers that green M&A greatly boosts green technology innovation and appears to be sustainable. Second, despite consuming large amounts of resources, green M&A can motivate enterprise green technology innovation primarily by squeezing out other technological innovations (internal resource support) and enjoying increased government green innovation subsidies (external resource support). Thirdly, green M&A also has other spillover effects, which can improve media coverage, enhance social responsibility performance, and boost investor confidence, showing the role of impression management. In addition, stricter environmental regulations and more media coverage can reinforce the relationship between green M&A and green innovation. #br#Different from the existing studies, the marginal contributions are reflected in the following aspects.First, this study examines the objective manifestations of green M&A affecting enterprise green technology innovation, enriching the literature of the influence factors of green technology innovation and simultaneously providing micro-level evidence for the debate on the “synergy” or “constraint” between green M&A and green technology innovation. Second, by employing the staggered PSM-DID method to reveal the relationship between green M&A and green technology innovation, this study effectively controls the potential endogeneity problems, avoiding the limitations of the existing studies that directly adopt dummy variables as a substitute for green M&A for ordinary regression analysis, thereby improving the accuracy of the conclusions. Third, from the “competition perspective” of green technology innovation and other technology innovation, and the “impression management perspective” of green innovation subsidies, along with the heterogeneity analysis of environmental regulations and media supervision, this study reveals the mechanism of green M&A in influencing enterprise green technology innovation. Overall, this study provides scientific evidence for the role of green M&A in stimulating green innovation in the context of carbon neutrality for heavily polluting enterprises.#br#

With the rapid development of China's economy,environmental pollution has become a pressing issue that restricts the sustainable development of China's economy and hinders harmonious coexistence between man and nature. As an important micro-body of China's economic operation, enterprises are crucial to green economic development. The green transformation of enterprises is also an inherent requirement for green economic development. Most of the existing studies explore the impact on the green development of enterprises based on regulatory policies and external pressures, but few studies have examined the decision-making behavior of green transformation and development at the micro-enterprise level. As the actual controller of the enterprise, the controlling shareholder plays a decisive role in the formulation of the enterprise development and transformation strategy. Share pledge by controlling shareholders is common in China. #br#Enterprise green transformation needs lasting and stable cash flow and bears the risk of transformation failure. During the share pledge period, on the one hand, the controlling shareholder needs to avoid the risk of control transfer due to the decline in the stock price, and the enterprise will be dampened to carry out green transformation; on the other hand, the share pledge means that the controlling shareholder is facing the dilemma of financing constraints, and when the shareholder faces serious financial constraints, it aggravates the controlling shareholder's occupation of the cash flow of the listed company through other receivables, hampering the enterprise to carry out green transformation. #br#From the perspective of share pledge, this paper studies whether the share pledge behavior of the controlling shareholder will affect the green transformation of the enterprise, and tries to clarify the mechanism of the impact of the share pledge on the enterprise green transformation. It is found that the share pledge of controlling shareholders will not only weaken the enterprises' willingness but also their ability of green transformation, which is manifested in the number reduction of green patent applications and the performance of green governance. At the enterprise level, enterprise value and financing constraints play a different role in regulating the relationship between share pledge behavior and enterprise green transformation. The higher the enterprise value, the more stable the investor's expectation of the company's future cash flow and green transformation results, then the smaller the threat of the controlling shareholder in the short term by the control transfer, so the higher the enterprise value, the smaller the impact of the share pledge behavior on the green innovation ability and green governance performance; while the financing constraint is the opposite, the greater the financing constraint of the enterprise, and the greater the impact of the share pledge behavior on the green innovation ability and green governance performance. Further research shows that state-owned share can effectively alleviate the impact of share pledges on the green transformation of enterprises, but local environmental regulations can not significantly affect the relationship between share pledge and enterprise green transformation. From perspective of economic consequences, the green transformation of enterprises can reduce the risk of stock price collapse in the share pledge. #br#This paper enriches the research on the influencing factors of enterprise green transformation and the share pledge behavior of controlling shareholders, and also provides new empirical evidence for promoting the green transformation behavior of enterprises. In addition, except policies such as green credit, green subsidies and environmental control, the regulatory authorities can encourage enterprises to improve their green innovation capabilities by strengthening the regulation and supervision of the share pledge behavior of the controlling shareholders of the enterprise, especially when the value of the enterprise is low or the enterprise faces strong financing constraints. It is necessary to take more active regulatory measures to prevent the controlling shareholders from encroaching on green transformation resources. Green transformation can reduce the risk of stock price collapse of enterprises in share pledge in the future. Chinese investors are gradually recognizing the value of green transformation, and green transformation is an important way to obtain future competitiveness.#br#

China's economy has shifted to the stage of high-quality development, where promoting green production and consumption is highly emphasized. Driven by digital and intelligent technologies, it has become the consensus of decision makers to take personalized customization as the mainstream of operation management. Accordingly, in order to meet customers' needs and catch up market consumption trends more accurately, firms tend to involve customers into green new product development (NPD). Meanwhile, with the help of digital collaboration platforms, customers have unleashed great potential in helping firms generate key R&D ideas. Therefore, customer involvement in green NPD is crucial for firms' sustainable development and can enhance firm performance.#br#However, the relationship between customer involvement and firm performance is found to be controversial in existing studies, which calls for further studies to unveil their intermediary processes and clarify the boundary conditions. For one thing, this study takes customer involvement as the driving factor of firm performance to meet the nuanced customization needs, and considers ambidextrous green innovations (exploitative green innovation and exploratory green innovation) as the internal mechanisms. Existing studies suggest that green innovation plays an important role in the relationship between customer involvement and firm performance. Some scholars classify green innovation into exploitative green innovation and exploratory green innovation, but they have not discussed the driving role of customer involvement, and there is also a lack of research on the impact of ambidextrous green innovations on firm performance. For another, considering the intelligent strategy that is generally integrated into firms' green NPD, this study takes product intelligence as a moderating variable to identify the dilemma of the lack of “middle-level knowledge” (i.e., the new knowledge of how products can adapt to various application scenarios) that appears in the transformation phase and results in the possible risks of customer involvement in green NPD. As one of the important elements of intelligent manufacturing, product intelligence is the key internal uncertainty that firms may encounter in digital transformation. However, the existing research on product intelligence is still in its infancy, most of which is qualitative research elaborating the concept and dimensions of product intelligence, and only a few empirical studies analyzing the impact of product intelligence on customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as its moderating role on the supplier involvement—firm performance link. The moderating effect of product intelligence in the process of customer involvement in green NPD is still uninvestigated. Therefore, this research focuses on the following two questions. (1) What is the relationship among customer involvement, ambidextrous green innovations and firm performance? (2) How does product intelligence influence the relationship between customer involvement and ambidextrous green innovations?#br#The hypotheses are verified by constructing the multiple linear regression model based on the data collected from 163 manufacturing firms in China. The empirical results show thatcustomer involvement into green NPD is positively associated with exploitative green innovation and exploratory green innovation; both exploitative green innovation and exploratory green innovation are positively related to firm performance; product intelligence weakens the relationships between customer involvement and ambidextrous green innovations.#br#Compared with the previous literature, the contributions of this paper are twofold. First,it introduces ambidextrous green innovations as the direct results of customer involvement in green NPD, and builds a theoretical framework with ambidextrous green innovations to meet differentiated customization needs and improve firm performance. In this respect, this study reveals the inner mechanisms between customer involvement and firm performance, while enriching the related research on customer involvement and ambidextrous green innovations. Second, different from previous literature, this paper analyzes the moderating effect of product intelligence on the relationship between customer involvement and ambidextrous green innovations, identifies the risks of customer involvement in green NPD and the dilemma of the lack of “middle-level knowledge” in the context of digital transformation, and fills the gap of empirical literature on customer involvement in the intelligent situation. #br#Meanwhile,regarding customer collaboration to execute green NPD activities in the context of product intelligence, this paper suggests to promote the construction and management of collaborative R&D-operation platforms, pay attention to the accumulation of middle-level knowledge, and attach importance to the cultivation of compound talents.#br#

With the environmental deterioration, green technology innovation strategy becomes the inevitable choice for enterprises to obtain competitive advantage and achieve sustainable development. Green innovation stems from a certain cultural context, and the value orientation rooted in cultural context has an important impact on green innovation. As a unique value concept in the context of Chinese traditional culture, Zhong-yong has a potential influence on Chinese thoughts and behaviors. However, there has not been a unified and clear conclusion about the influence of Zhong-yong on green innovation in China, and the influence mechanism of Zhong-yong orientation on knowledge sharing has not been fully discussed, let alone the research on the relationship between Zhong-yong orientation and green innovation behavior of researchers based on the perspective of knowledge sharing. In addition, in different organizational environments, the impact of Zhong-yong orientation on green innovation behavior may be different. Therefore, the relationship between Zhong-yong and green innovation behavior partly depends on whether the organizational environment supports employees to carry out green innovation. Organizational green innovation support provides a standard and collective evaluation guarantee for the impact of Zhong-yong on individual green innovation behavior through knowledge sharing, and it might be the key factor of the direct and indirect effect intensity of the impact of Zhong-yong orientation on individual green innovation behavior. Therefore, from on individual perspective, this research discusses the influence mechanism of Zhong-yong on green innovation behavior, and analyzes the mediating role of knowledge sharing and the regulating effect of organizational green innovation support perception. It conducts the hierarchical regression analysis and builds multiple regression model by 346 effective sample data from high and new technology enterprise of scientific research personnel. #br#The results show that (1) Zhong-yong orientation has a positive effect on individual green innovation behavior. High Zhong-yong orientation can provide researchers with a multi-dimensional perspective to comprehensively consider economic, social and ecological benefits, which is conducive to green innovation behavior.(2) Knowledge sharing plays a mediating role in the relationship between Zhong-yong orientation and green innovation behavior. Green innovation is characterized by complexity and uncertainty, which makes researchers' demands for green knowledge and innovative ideas more prominent. When researchers have high Zhong-yong orientation, they can promote cooperation and communication with others, share valuable green knowledge, experience and skills with each other, expand the breadth of green innovation thinking, inspire others to choose green innovation, and then improve the possibility of their green innovation behavior. (3)Organizational green innovation support perception positively moderates the relationship between Zhong-yong orientation and green innovation behavior, Zhong-yong orientation and knowledge sharing. The knowledge sharing and green innovation behavior of researchers will be affected by the attitude of the organization to green innovation, which will guide the behavior of researchers. When researchers perceive the support of the organization to green innovation, the effectiveness of knowledge sharing and green innovation activities of researchers will be enhanced. #br#The results not only enrich the research results about green innovation behavior, but also have important implications for enterprise managers to use local cultural values to stimulate the management practice of green innovation of researchers directly and indirectly. First, this research makes up for the gaps in research on relationship between Zhong-yong orientation and green innovation behavior of scientific research personnel, and helps reveal the micro-mechanism of organization′s green innovation. Second, according to the research results, high Zhong-yong orientation helps employees to carry out green innovation activities. Therefore, it is necessary to cultivate employees' global thinking, motivate them to view problems comprehensively with crisis consciousness, and adjust themselves for changes and various viewpoints. Employees who think about the internal and external environment pay more attention to the ecological environment problems and promote the green innovation willingness and green innovation activities. Finally, in order to realize the transformation from traditional innovation mode to green innovation mode, we should not only pay attention to the innovation ideology of researchers, but also pay attention to the impact of organizational environment and organizational attitude on employees, and establish a solid driving mechanism from the micro-level to improve enterprises' capacity of green technology innovation.#br#

Environmental pollution and ecological damage caused by traditional development paths have been a matter of public concern for a long time in China. Among them, the production activities of enterprises in heavy-pollution industries are particularly notable for the heavy environmental costs while rapidly accumulating economic benefits for the market. President Xi Jinping has repeatedly stressed the ecological governance and green development concept that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets". The green development of heavy-pollution enterprises is both vital and imminent in China. Therefore, this study takes enterprises in heavy-pollution industries as the research object, integrates green technology innovation into enterprise production activities, constructs the "executive perception-capability-performance " path to improve the economic performance and environmental performance of enterprises in heavy-pollution industries, and embeds the regulatory role of environmental regulation from the macroscopic view in the hope of promoting the green development of enterprises in the heavy-pollution industries.#br#The listed enterprises in the heavy-pollution industries in A-shares in Shenzhen and Shanghai from 2012 to 2019 are taken as the research sample to modify the nonlinear mediating effect test model. The Hayes & Preacher's research test method is applied to modify the nonlinear mediating effect test model with a moderated mediating effect test model. The effect of executives' green perception on firms' economic performance and environmental performance, and the different mediating role of green technology innovation capability are analyzed, and the boundaries of the whole research path under environmental regulation are explored. The empirical results show that executives' green perception positively contributes to both corporate economic performance and environmental performance, as well as green technology innovation capability; there is an U-shape relationship between green technology innovation capability and corporate economic performance; green technology innovation capability positively contributes to firm environmental performance; the innovation capability of green technology plays an U-shape mediating role between executive green perception and economic performance; green technology innovation capability plays a linear mediating role between executive green perception and environmental performance; environmental regulation positively regulates the relationship between executive green perception and green technology innovation capability; environmental regulation positively regulates the U-shaped mediating role of green technology innovation capability between executive green perception and economic performance; environmental regulation positively regulates the linear mediating role of green technology innovation capability between executive green perception and environmental performance.#br#This paper offers an in-depth investigation of the mechanism of executive green perception on corporate performance through green technology innovation capability. The research conclusions expand the research on the antecedent factors of corporate economic performance and environmental performance based on the theory of strategic cognition, and enrich the research on the influence of executive traits on green development at the corporate level. It also provides some reference for how to formulate green development strategies under the external pressure of environmental regulations for corporate executives in heavy-pollution industries. The first step is to introduce the innovative achievements of leading enterprises and typical demonstration enterprises of green technology innovation to integrate with their own enterprise technology flexibility. The second is to join green technology innovation project incubators and mass entrepreneurship and innovation bases established by enterprises, universities and scientific research institutions to obtain the latest technological innovation achievements;finally, since green technology innovation capability can only be promoted by the accumulation of capability strength, and more importantly, it will have an impact on the long-term development of enterprises, executives need to be patient and resilient to fully understand its impact on the economic performance of enterprises. #br#Since existing studies have divided environmental regulation into three dimensions: command control environmental regulation, incentive environmental regulation and voluntary environmental regulation, this study does not divide the dimensions for in-depth discussion, further research could focus on the heterogeneous moderating effect of different types of environmental regulations on the path of executive perception-ability-performance from the aforementioned three dimensions.#br#

Green technology innovation is the fundamental way to promote the transformation of regional economic structure, and a reasonable environmental management system is the key to encouraging regional enterprises to carry out green innovation. As the main body of green innovation, enterprises need to bear the dual externalities of innovation activities. It is difficult for them to realize green transformation only by market mechanism，and environmental policy intervention of the local governments is an important driver of enterprises' green transformation. #br#The environmental decentralization system, as the basic guarantee for local governments to independently formulate environmental policies, is expected to strengthen the flexibility of local governments in environmental governance. What impact will the existing environmental decentralization system and the level of decentralization have on the efficiency of green innovation of enterprises? It shall promote the green transformation of economic society by exploring this issue. The allocation of power and responsibility in economic affairs between central and local governments will also affect the decision-making of local governments in environmental management. The existing research on the impact of environmental decentralization on green innovation efficiency of enterprises is insufficient, and scholars have paid more attention to the relationship between environmental decentralization and green development. Most scholars focus on exploring the direct impact of environmental decentralization on green development without reaching generally-accepted consensus.#br#Following the theory of heterogeneous environmental decentralization, this paper uses the panel data of China's inter-provincial industrial enterprises from 2009 to 2020, and employs the dynamic GMM panel model to empirically analyze and test the nonlinear impact of environmental protection personnel decentralization, environmental protection funds decentralization，and environmental protection legislation decentralization on the efficiency of green innovation of enterprises，and explore the mediating effect of multiple factors in green R&D input and R&D output of enterprises , and finally it analyzes the moderating effect of fiscal decentralization. #br#The study finds that firstly both the decentralization of environmental protection personnel and decentralization of environmental protection legislation have an inverted U-shaped impact on the efficiency of enterprise green innovation, while the decentralization of environmental protection funds has an U-shaped impact on the efficiency of enterprise green innovation. There are obvious differences in the level of environmental decentralization in different dimensions among provinces in China. At present, three types of environmental decentralization in most provinces in China have not crossed the inflection point, and the impact of environmental protection personnel and legislative decentralization on the efficiency of green innovation of enterprises is in the promotion stage, while environmental protection funds decentralization has a blocking effect on the efficiency of enterprise green innovation. Secondly the green R&D input and R&D output of enterprises are the main transmission channels through which environmental decentralization plays a role in the green innovation efficiency of enterprises. Among them, the input of green R&D personnel and green R&D funds, and the output of green technology and the green economy show a significant partial or complete mediating role. Thirdly fiscal decentralization positively moderates the inverted U-shaped or U-shaped relationship among environmental protection personnel decentralization, environmental protection funds decentralization and the efficiency of green innovation of enterprises, while negatively moderates the inverted U-shaped relationship between the decentralization of environmental protection legislation and the efficiency of enterprise green innovation.#br#On the basis of the research results, this paper puts forward the following suggestions. Firstly for the different dimensions of environmental decentralization, the government should adopt regional differentiated environmental decentralization policies. Secondly the government should pay attention to the mediating role of green R&D input and R&D output, guide and urge enterprises to increase R&D investment and encourage enterprises to carry out technological innovation through environmental policy means. Thirdly it is essential to match the degree of fiscal decentralization with the division of central and regional environmental management authority, and further give play to the advantageous role of local governments in environmental decentralization governance from the perspective of fiscal decentralization.#br#

Climate change is among the most intensely debated socioeconomic issues today. To address the potential catastrophe risks posed by climate change, governments around the world are pushing for various forms of regulation to curb greenhouse gas emissions. As the world's largest carbon emitter, China faces severe environmental governance pressures. In order to solve the prominent problem of resource and environmental constraints, China has implemented an environmental constraint index system from the “11 Five-Year” plan, and gradually increased the weight of environmental performance in the performance evaluation of local government leaders, resulting in a significant decrease in the energy consumption intensity per unit of GDP. In order to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality as soon as possible, China has innovatively proposed the dual control system of total energy consumption and energy intensity system (DCS hereafter) in the “13 Five-Year” Plan. The main difference between DCS and the previous policy is the addition of total energy consumption control which is one of the main reasons for power outages in many places in China in 2021. But there is little literature on the economic consequences of DCS, and this is what this paper focuses on.
Institutional theory emphasizes that the government's attention to environmental issues makes environmental governance an important indicator for evaluating the legitimacy of enterprises, thereby creating pressure on the legality of environmental supervision on enterprises. This environmental legality pressure will prompt enterprises to change their environmental strategies. However, there is no consistent conclusion about the relationship between institutional pressure and corporate environmental governance, and it is difficult to explain why companies show heterogeneity when they are subjected to the same institutional pressure. This may be because institutional pressure is not only manifested in the role of explicit environmental regulations, standards and other regulatory designs, but also subject to the impact of the actual implementation of the system. Especially for a country like China with a vast territory and great regional economic differences, the trade-off between economic growth and environmental protection will inevitably lead to heterogeneous results in environmental regulation. Combined with the institutional theory and the political championship theory, this paper centers around the implementation of DCS to explore the heterogeneous impact of institutional pressure on the green innovation of enterprises.
This paper selects the data of listed companies in China's A-share heavy polluting industries from 2017 to 2019 to study the impact of DCS started in the "13th Five-Year Plan" on the green innovation of enterprises. The results show that the DCS can significantly promote the green innovation of enterprises, in which the effect of target control of total energy consumption is more significant, and the effect of target control of energy consumption intensity is less significant. The results remain unchanged after a series of robustness checks. The mechanism test finds that DCS is mainly to encourage green innovation of enterprises by increasing the environmental supervision of local governments, raising the cost of environmental protection compliance of enterprises, and issuing more government subsidies related to environmental protection to the listed companies and easing corporate financing constraints. In the further analysis, the results show that the pressure of economic growth will weaken the effect of DCS on promoting green innovation, and relationship between DCS and green innovation is more pronounced when the firm's financial flexibility is high.
The contributions of this paper are as follows. First, this paper is the first to empirically analyze the economic consequences of the DCS, and it is helpful to scientifically evaluate and understand DCS. This provides an empirical basis for improving DCS under the background of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. Second, the institutional pressure and the degree of regulatory enforcement caused by the DCS also vary from place to place, which makes corporate green innovation show heterogeneity, thus this study enriches the literature on institutional pressure and corporate green innovation. Third, it also enriches the related research on political tournament theory. In areas where local governments set higher economic growth goals, the “dual control of energy consumption” system is found to have a weaker incentive for green innovation, indicating that the political championship theory has a significant impact on the relationship between institutional pressure and corporate environmental governance.