Inhibited or promoted: Corporate social responsibility and green technology innovation performance of enterprises

RAN Rong; DONG Di; XIE Yi; FANG Ting-Ting

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Science Research Management ›› 2023, Vol. 44 ›› Issue (6) : 95-106.

Inhibited or promoted: Corporate social responsibility and green technology innovation performance of enterprises

Ran Rong¹, Dong Di¹, Hu Xuan¹, Fang Tingting²

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Abstract

In September 2020, China clearly put forward the "double carbon" goals of "carbon peaking" by 2030 and "carbon neutrality" by 2060, which set the direction and requirements for the green transformation of Chinese enterprises. However, whether the green development policies proposed by government departments can be transformed into the motivation for corporate green innovation often depends on the interaction between corporate non-market strategies and market strategies. In the context of striving to create a new era of socialist ecological civilization, it is important to explore the influence of CSR on corporate green innovation and reveal its influence mechanism, in order to promote the development of corporate green transformation and ultimately achieve both economic and environmental benefits at this stage in China. In the context of innovation becoming the first driving force of development, the study of CSR and technological innovation performance and its economic effects has received sufficient attention.
Although there are abundant studies, there is still room for in-depth research. First, most of the existing studies have examined the relationship between CSR and green technology innovation with developed countries as the sample, but less attention has been paid to developing countries. Second, the moderating role of how corporate redundant resources play in this is unanswered for now. Therefore, this paper examines how CSR affects the quantity and quality of green technology innovation in the Chinese scenario, and further explores the moderating role of the two types of redundant resources. This paper focuses on the relationship between CSR and green technology innovation output using 2012-2019 State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) green patent grant and R&L Global CSR Rating data.
We found through the study that, first, CSR performance significantly contributes to firms′ green technology innovation output; second, CSR can significantly contribute to firms′ green technology innovation output by providing more redundant resources; third, after considering the moderating role of redundant resources, it is found that unabsorbed redundant resources strengthen the role of CSR performance in promoting green technology innovation output, while non-precipitated slack resource do not have a significant positive moderating role in the relationship between CSR performance and green technology innovation, indicating that it is the long-term investment and financing capability of enterprises that may truly promote green technology innovation. This paper shows that good CSR performance contributes to green technology innovation output even when the resource boundaries of the firm are also taken into account, which can enable scholars to understand the relationship between fulfilling CSR and green technology innovation more comprehensively.
This study has important practical implications. First, since the effectiveness of CSR performance in promoting green technology innovation is affected by redundant resources, firms can enhance the effectiveness of CSR in promoting green technology innovation output by improving their capabilities, controlling redundant resources flexibly according to available redundant resources. Second, government managers should focus on environmental policies and the adoption of policies that facilitate and accelerate corporate sustainability CSR strategies. This can promote the development of green technology innovation and enhance the competitive advantage of enterprises，which is beneficial to the economic and environmental sustainability of the companies themselves and the society as a whole.

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corporate social responsibility (CSR) / green technology innovation / redundant resource / moderate effect

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Ran Rong, Dong Di, Hu Xuan, Fang Tingting. Inhibited or promoted: Corporate social responsibility and green technology innovation performance of enterprises[J]. Science Research Management. 2023, 44(6): 95-106

References

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