Impacts of digital transformation on corporate green technology innovation: Do board characteristics play a role?

Digital transformation (DT), board characteristics, and green technology innovation (GI) have a substantial impact on corporate sustainability. However, there are seemingly conflicting conclusions about how DT affects an enterprise's GI performance, and few studies have considered the moderating effect of board characteristics. We aim to explore the impact of board characteristics on the correlation between DT and GI, using a sample of 1470 listed companies in China and employing a fixed-effects model. Our results suggest that DT significantly enhances enterprises' GI performance; DT indirectly promotes the GI performance of enterprises by increasing their R&D investments, optimizing human capital structure, and enhancing management efficiency. Additionally, board gender diversity, board size, and board educational level positively moderate the relationship between DT on GI, whereas the impact will be blunted by board age diversity. Our conclusions are of great value to promote enterprises' GI performance and realize enterprises' sustainable development.