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

Sumin Hu, Yunsi Chen, Haoqiang Wu and Daming Sun

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 2025, vol. 68, issue 9, 2165-2193

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

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/09640568.2024.2311817

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