Technological, process or managerial innovation? How does digital transformation affect green innovation in industrial enterprises?

Amidst the current wave of digitalization and the realization of the "dual-carbon" goal, the question of whether the digital transformation of enterprises (EDT) can drive green innovation (GI) and accelerate industrial enterprises to enter the sustainable and high-caliber advancement track has attracted much attention from academia and practitioners. Drawing on data collected from 1750 industrial enterprises listed publicly between 2011 and 2020, this paper seeks to examine the impact of EDT on GI (including technology, management, and process). It is found that: (1) EDT significantly improves the GI of industrial enterprises, and the marginal effect of this impact is reflected in green technology innovation (GTI) > green process innovation (GPI) > green management innovation (GMI). (2) EDT can promote GI through the factor reconstruction effect and risk mitigation effect. In addition, global network correlation can reinforce the positive effect of EDT on GI. (3) Further analysis shows that the GI incentive effect of EDT mainly comes from digital realization, followed by digital concept and digital support. (4) The heterogeneity analysis indicates that EDT has a significant effect on driving GI in the dual pilot cities of "innovation" + "low-carbon". For heavily polluting industrial enterprises, EDT does not contribute to GI promotion in an obvious manner.