Abstract:     Green innovation creates economic value while reducing resource consumption and environmental costs. It is an increasingly popular practice in management of enterprises to integrate value creation and green initiatives into strategic decision-making. Industry associations play an intermediary role in this practice, but its influence mechanism remains to be further understood. This paper built up a comprehensive research framework based on the organizational attributes of industry associations, as well as institutional logic and stakeholder theory, and examined the contextual mechanisms and transmission paths through which industry associations connection affects green innovation of enterprises. The results showed that: (1) Industry associations connection has a promoting effect on green innovation of enterprises; (2) The moderating effect analysis based on internal and external collaborative governance showed that the independence of the board, analysts′ attention and the quality of external audit strengthen the positive effect of industry associations connection on green innovation of enterprises, thus confirming the legitimacy pressure perception mechanism of stakeholders; (3) The mechanism analysis showed that industry associations connection can promote green innovation by improving ESG performance and absorption capacity of enterprises. And there are systematic differences in this driving effect among different types of industry associations connection. The research results have expanded the antecedents of green innovation and deepened the understanding of the nature and governance functions of China industry associations, and will provide practical enlightenment from the multilateral governance of industry associations, market service agencies and boards to promote prosocial decisionmaking and green innovation of enterprises.

Key words: industry associations connection；green innovation of enterprise, board independence, analysts′ attention, external audit quality