The impact of corporate environmental responsibility on green technological innovation: A nonlinear model including mediate effects and moderate effects☆

Corporate environmental responsibility and green technological innovation, as two major driving forces for green development, deserves more theoretical discussion. This paper systematically analyzed the nonlinear relationship between corporate environmental responsibility and green technological innovation by utilizing the 5084 observations from a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies (2011-2020). The results show that: (1) There is indeed a U-shaped nonlinear relationship between corporate environmental responsibility and green technological innovation, with this influence is more prominent in the corporate environmental responsibility - green technological innovation quantity nexus. (2) All mediating effects in this article have been proved and also exhibit a better performance in mediating between corporate environmental responsibility and green technology innovation quantity. (3) The baseline relationship in our research has significant enterprise ownership, market competition, and policy uncertainty heterogeneity. Moreover, the corporate environmental responsibility-green technology innovation quantity nexus is more sensitive to the above scenario factors. (c) 2023 Economic Society of Australia, Queensland. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study confirms the nonlinear relationship between corporate environmental responsibility and green technological innovation through analysis of Chinese listed companies, and finds that mediating effects play an important role in the relationship between the two.