How to drive green innovation in China's mining enterprises? Under the perspective of environmental legitimacy and green absorptive capacity

Environmental legitimacy and green absorptive capacity immensely contribute to ensuring green innovation; however, their integration in driving green innovation in mining enterprises (MEs) remains unexplored. This study surveys 133 MEs in China's mining sector and uses multi-regression analysis to investigate the relationships between environmental legitimacy, organisational factors of senior management cognition and green strategic orientation, green absorptive capacity, and green innovation in MEs. We find that: (1) Environmental legitimacy, which includes formal and informal institutional pressure, positively impacts senior management cognition and green strategic orientation in mining enterprises. (2) Senior management cognition and green strategic orientation have a positive association with MEs' green innovation. They also have a positive mediating effect on the relationship between environmental legitimacy and green innovation. (3) Green absorptive capacity can positively moderate the relationship between senior management cognition and green innovation, and between green strategic orientation and green innovation. (4) The size of the enterprise, as a control variable, has a significant correlation with green innovation. Finally, our study proposes four leading policy suggestions for MEs and policymakers, including building a comprehensive green innovation evaluation framework involving multiple participants, reinforcing the executive's green commitments and proactive green strategic orientation, and establishing a company-wide green knowledge learning system and external green knowledge cooperation.