The impact of digital technology on enterprise green innovation: quality or quantity?

Digital technology promotes the dual transformation of enterprise digitization and greenization, thereby promoting the synergistic efficiency between the digital economy and the green economy. This paper collected financial data from 2010 to 2021 from Chinese listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges. Through an in-depth semantic analysis of textual data, the study constructed an index to measure the level of enterprise digitization. Utilizing panel data models, the paper explored the impact of digital technology on enterprise green innovation and its mechanisms from the perspectives of quality and quantity. The research findings are as follows: (1) Digital technology significantly enhances the capability of enterprises for green innovation, with an emphasis on quality rather than quantity; (2) digital technology effectively alleviates financing constraints and information constraints, thereby enhancing the level of enterprise green innovation, but the former's effect is limited to small and medium-sized enterprises; (3) the "quality over quantity" effect of digital technology on enterprise green innovation is more pronounced in state-owned enterprises, non-heavy polluting industries, and enterprises located in regions with moderate to low levels of economic development.