The concept of “smart cities” plays a positive role in the overall green and sustainable development of a nation. However, it is still debated whether smart cities can restrain the carbon emission intensity at the micro-level and promote the green transformation of enterprises. To this end, based on China's smart city policy (SCP) and regional enterprise data from 2008 to 2015, we study the impact of SCP on the carbon emission intensity of local enterprises, using the difference-in-differences method. The results show that SCP significantly reduces the carbon emission intensity of enterprises, and the estimated results remain significant after the propensity score matching. The mechanism analysis finds that digital transformation, innovation by enterprises, and urban green innovation all strengthen the impact of SCP on the carbon emission intensity of enterprises. The conclusions extend the scope of the existing research and provide suggestions for micro-enterprises to take advantage of SCP for better development.
Digital transformation has had extensive impacts on enterprises and increased the concern that employees will be replaced by digital technologies. Achieving sustainability at the human resource level is a problem for enterprises. In this case, improving academic qualifications is regarded by most Chinese employees as an approach to improving their competitive advantages. Based on the panel data of China’s listed enterprises from 2014 to 2020, the twice fixed effects (TWFE) and continuous difference-in-differences (DID) methods are used to study the impact of enterprises’ digital transformation on employees’ educational structure (EES). The results show that enterprises’ digital transformation has a significantly positive impact on EES. For enterprises, specifically, the digital transformation increases the demand for employees with undergraduate degrees and reduces the demand for employees with high school degrees and below. The above results remain significant after controlling for endogeneity. However, the impact of digital transformation on employees with graduate degrees and above and associate degrees is not significant. We explain the above phenomena from the technological change assumption, the concept of human capital specificity, and the resource-based view. Results in this study provide references for employees to balance study or find a job and are beneficial for enterprises seeking to take advantage of digital transformation. Furthermore, the results can provide suggestions for achieving sustainability at the human resource level for enterprise development.
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