Taking all A-share listed companies in China from 2009 to 2022 as research samples, this paper examines the relationship between customer enterprises' environmental, social, and governance (ESG) rating and supplier enterprises' green innovation. The empirical results show that customer enterprises' ESG rating has a positive impact on supplier enterprises' green innovation. Reducing the amount of funds of supplier enterprises, encouraging supplier enterprises to increase innovation investment, and improving the managers' green cognition of supplier enterprises are the three mechanisms through which customer enterprises' ESG rating promotes supplier enterprises' green innovation. Supplier enterprises' market power will negatively moderate the positive relationship between customer enterprises' ESG rating and supplier enterprises' green innovation. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the positive influence of customer ESG rating on suppliers' green innovation is stronger under two conditions. Firstly, it is more pronounced when customers face greater legitimacy pressure or engage in more substantive ESG practices. Secondly, the effect is also amplified when suppliers lack credibility or operate under stricter environmental regulations. Further research shows that customer enterprises' ESG rating is more effective in promoting supplier enterprises' green innovation when the uncertainty of ESG rating results is low, and that supplier enterprises' green innovation contributes not only to supplier enterprises' own ESG rating but also to supplier enterprises' total factor productivity. This paper highlights the spillover effects of ESG rating pressure from the perspective of supplier enterprises and provides empirical evidence and managerial implications for promoting corporate green innovation.

The rapid emergence and widespread permeation of digital technologies are driving the digital transformation of supply chains, offering an opportunity to enhance their sustainability. This paper analyzes the data of Chinese A-share listed companies and their suppliers from 2013 to 2021 and explores the impact that customer enterprises’digitalization exerts on supplier enterprises’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance from the perspective of digital empowerment. This paper finds that customer enterprises’ digitalization has an enhancement effect on supplier enterprises’ ESG performance, i.e., digitalization’s empowering effect on the sustainable development of supply chains, which is an asymmetric effect. This effect is more significant when customer enterprises outshine supplier enterprises in terms of digitalization. The mechanism test shows that customer digitalization enhances supplier ESG performance primarily through two empowering effects: structural (i.e., improved supply-chain collaboration) and resource (i.e., alleviated factor constraints on suppliers). Heterogeneity analysis further reveals that this positive effect is more pronounced when local governments’ environmental attentionis higher or when the customer supplier relationship is closer. The effectiveness test shows that customer enterprises’digitalization boosts supplier enterprises’ ESG performance and helps to enhance supply chain resilience. This paper enriches the research on the influencing factors and implementation mechanisms of sustainable supply chains, broadens the research boundaries of enterprise digitalization and supply chain resilience, and provides important enlightenment for promoting the sustainable development of supply chains in China and enhancing their resilience and security.

The relationship between environmental regulation and green innovation has long been debated. One possible reason is that most studies overlook the dual heterogeneity of environmental regulations (command-and-control and market-based) and green innovation (strategic and substantive). Drawing on the institutional theory and knowledge management theory, this study develops a theoretical framework of “environmental regulation–knowledge search–enterprise green innovation.” Using multiple linear regression and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this paper tests the hypotheses based on 285 enterprise survey responses. The findings show that command-and-control environmental regulation promotes only strategic green innovation, whereas market-based environmental regulation promotes only substantive green innovation. Knowledge search depth mediates the relationship between command-and control environmental regulation and strategic green innovation, while knowledge search breadth mediates the relationship between market-based environmental regulation and substantive green innovation. Furthermore, the fsQCA results identify five causal configurations, including two configurations leading to high strategic green innovation and three leading to high substantive green innovation. These findings expand the research dimensions on how environmental regulation influences enterprise green innovation and offer insights for governments to adjust regulatory policies and for enterprises to respond to external institutional pressures.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) serves as an important breakthrough for enterprises to advance sustainable development and promote high-quality development. It is also a key pathway for the capital market to move toward sustainability. A sound evaluation of the innovation value of ESG plays an important role in accelerating the establishment of China as a strong science and technology country in the new development stage. Using A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2012 to 2021 as the empirical sample, the present study conducts empirical tests based on an enterprise fixed effects model. The results show that: Firstly, stronger ESG performance improves corporate innovation efficiency and produces an efficiency-enhancing effect on innovation. This conclusion holds after a series of robustness checks and after addressing potential endogeneity. Secondly, ESG performance increases corporate innovation efficiency through three channels: higher R&D investment, relief of financing constraints, and lower agency costs. In other words, ESG improves innovation efficiency through stronger R&D incentives and cost-saving effects. Thirdly, the positive effect of ESG on innovation efficiency varies across enterprises. The effect is more pronounced in regions with higher marketization and among private enterprises and those with returnee executives. This paper provides empirical evidence on optimizing innovation resource allocation through ESG-driven strategic transformation in the new development stage.

Based on the perspective of digital resource orchestration, this study uses Gree Electric Appliances Inc. of Zhuhai as a case study and adopts a longitudinal single case study method to explore the digital empowerment mechanism within the green innovation process of manufacturing enterprises. The study finds the following three points. (1) The digital empowerment for green innovation has evolved through three developmental stages: the traditional green development stage, the digital-driven green advancement stage, and the digital-green integration stage. Across these stages, green innovation manifests in three dimensions: process innovation, product innovation, and organizational innovation. (2) The specific process of digital resource orchestration is digital resource structuring‒digital resource bundling‒digital resource greening, which can be implemented through three distinct variations: incremental, integrative, and embedded. (3) In the traditional green development stage, dominated by policy-driven factors, improvement-oriented digital resource orchestration leads to localized green process innovation. In the digital-driven green advancement stage, where market-driven factors dominate, integrative orchestration supports green innovation across the entire value chain. In the digital-green integration stage, dominated by strategy-driven factors, embedded orchestration empowers green innovation at both the organizational and industrial-ecosystem levels.