Factors affecting enterprise level green innovation efficiency in the digital economy era – Evidence from listed paper enterprises in China

Abstract

The Guidelines on Building a Market-Oriented Green Technology Innovation System, which was released by China in 2019, has become a powerful signal to guide the development of green technology innovation (GTI). In the current digital strategy of China, the public media has become a key factor for promoting the transparency of enterprise environmental information. This paper measures the GTI efficiency of the listed paper enterprises in China as well as incorporating media attention into the research framework to explore the influencing factors of GTI of the listed paper enterprises in China during the digital economy era. The results showed that a positive media report had a positive impact on GTI and has become a new driving factor in promoting sustainable production in the digital era. Government support and openness also have a positive impact on GTI. However, negative media reports, environmental regulations, and technological innovation abilities have an inhibitory effect on the GTI efficiency of paper making enterprises.

How does the digital economy promote green technology innovation by manufacturing enterprises? Evidence from China

“…The shareholding structure means that the shareholders have control over the business. Decisions within the business can be implemented more quickly (He et al, 2021). ( 5) Business growth (Growth) represents the profitability of the business, which was measured as the growth rate of the enterprise's operating income (Wang and Chu, 2019;Dou and Gao, 2022).…”

“…( 5) Business growth (Growth) represents the profitability of the business, which was measured as the growth rate of the enterprise's operating income (Wang and Chu, 2019;Dou and Gao, 2022). ( 6) Financial leverage (Lev) reflects the overall quality and liquidity of the business (He et al, 2021), which was measured as total debt divided by total assets. (7) R&D personnel (lnRDP), which was measured by the logarithm of the number of R&D personnel in the enterprise.…”

“…Many studies often use a set of predictor variables to measure the response to a particular variable. In view of Wei et al (2015) and He et al (2021), multiple regression models have been used to measure the relationship between digital technology, venture capital, and green innovation. To test the relationship between regional digital economy and GTI, we constructed the following regression models (see model (1) and model ( 2)).…”

“…As an integration of information technology and economic production modes, the digital economy offers a new strategic choice for China's industrial transformation (Yang et al, 2021). It provides a new research perspective for GTI by liberating social productivity, changing the way knowledge is transferred, and reducing transaction costs (Chihiro et al, 2018;He et al, 2021;. Dou and Gao (2022) argued that in areas with a high level of digital economy, cloud computing and big data will drive the transformation of production modes, which will require enterprises to update equipment (Yetis-Larsson et al, 2015;Wang et al, 2022), eliminate traditional production modes (Song et al, 2020;Cao et al, 2021), and achieve a balance between economic and environmental development.…”

“…Therefore, if manufacturing enterprises cannot reasonably allocate limited resources, GTI will be hindered. With the aid of digital technology, the digital economy can break the constraints of time and space (He et al, 2021;, guide the sharing and transmission of labor and capital resources, and promote the green total factor growth rate (Song et al, 2020). In addition, it is worth noting that the digital economy is the driving force for the economic structure transformation, which will tend to eliminate "high-pollution, high-energy-consuming" industries and transform them into green industrial factories (Lu et al, 2021;Dou and Gao, 2022).…”