How do competition and collaboration promote green technology diffusion? Evidence from the global hydropower industry

Amidst urgent global calls for sustainable development, the diffusion of green technology emerges as a pivotal challenge, especially in our interconnected and dynamic digital era. Therefore, this research explores the drivers of green technology diffusion, moving from the traditional binary view of organizational proximity to a more nuanced trend of intricate and dynamic interactions within inter-organizational networks. We introduce a conceptual model to examine the influence of competition and collaboration on green technology diffusion, employing an inter-organizational network perspective. Our empirical study, targeting the global hydropower industry from 1999 to 2018, employs multi-source heterogeneous network analysis and quadratic assignment procedure regression. The findings reveal that during the industry's growth phase, collaboration plays a more significant role in green technology diffusion than competition. Conversely, in the maturity phase, competition emerges as the primary positive influence. Additionally, geographical distance is found to positively moderate the relationship between both competition and collaboration in green technology diffusion. These insights enhance our understanding of the drivers of green technology diffusion and provide policy recommendations for promoting such diffusion through inter-organizational competition and collaboration in the new area.