企业数字化能否促进绿色技术创新？——基于重污染行业上市公司的考察

《财经研究》 2022年48卷第4期 页码：34 - 48  online：2022年3月31日

企业数字化能否促进绿色技术创新？——基于重污染行业上市公司的考察

Can Firm Digitalization Promote Green Technological Innovation? An Examination Based on Listed Companies in Heavy Pollution Industries

作者（中）：宋德勇, 朱文博, 丁海

作者（英）：Song Deyong, Zhu Wenbo, Ding Hai

作者单位：1.华中科技大学 经济学院, 湖北 武汉 430074

摘要：在数字经济快速发展的背景下，企业数字化能否促进绿色技术创新引起了学术界的关注。已有研究对企业数字化水平的度量缺乏统一的标准，并且没有对企业数字化影响绿色技术创新的微观路径进行全面深入的检验。区别于现有研究，文章不仅基于无形资产数据度量企业的数字化水平，还对上市公司年度报告进行了更细化的文本分析，用在“管理层讨论与分析”的“业绩回顾”中的数字化词频占比来度量企业实际的数字化水平，并运用网络招聘大数据对构造的指标进行检验。在此基础上，文章考察重污染行业企业数字化对绿色技术创新的影响，并运用上市公司专利申请明细数据对微观作用机制进行探讨与检验。研究表明，重污染行业企业的数字化能够显著促进企业绿色技术创新，这一结论在经过IV估计、反事实分析和改变估计方法等一系列稳健性检验后依然显著成立。机制分析表明，企业数字化主要通过提升企业的信息共享水平和知识整合能力从而促进企业绿色技术创新。异质性分析表明，对于环保投资水平更高以及所在地区环境规制力度更强的企业，数字化产生的绿色创新激励效应更大。文章清晰揭示了企业数字化促进企业绿色创新的机理，拓展了企业数字化的相关研究，剖析了企业数字化与绿色可持续发展实现兼容的路径。这对于中国在全球数字化浪潮下实现经济绿色转型和“碳达峰”“碳中和”目标具有重要的政策启示，也可以为中国数字经济发展提供有意义的参考。

关键词：企业数字化; 绿色技术创新; 知识整合; 信息共享

Summary: With the rapid development of the digital economy, whether firm digitalization can promote green technological innovation has attracted considerable attention from the academic in recent years. Nevertheless, in the existing literature, there is no unified standard for measuring firm digitalization and few studies have explored the channels through which firm digitalization affects green technological innovation in depth. In contrast to the existing literature, this paper not only measures firm digitalization employing intangible assets data, but also analyzes the annual reports of listed companies in a more detailed textual way, where we use each firm’s digital-related text proportion in the “Performance Review” of “Management Discussion and Analysis” to more accurately measure firm digitalization. This paper also employs online recruitment data to test the constructed indicators above. On this basis, it examines the impact of firm digitization on green technological innovation in heavy pollution industries, and uses patent application data with detailed information to explore and test the microscopic mechanism which is rarely explored in the existing literature.This study shows that firm digitalization in heavy pollution industries can significantly promote green technological innovation, and this finding still holds significantly after a series of robustness tests. Firm digitalization in heavy pollution industries has a more significant effect on green invention patents with higher originality, while it does not have a significant effect on green utility patents with lower originality. The mechanism analysis shows that firm digitalization primarily promotes green technological innovation by enhancing the information sharing and knowledge integration ability of firms. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the positive effect of digitization on green technological innovation is greater for firms with more environmental investment and stronger environmental regulation in their regions.The main contributions of this paper are as follows: First, it identifies and empirically examines the micro mechanism through which firm digitalization promotes green technological innovation, and clearly reveals that firm digitalization can promote green technological innovation through improving information sharing and knowledge integration, which expands the existing related research. Second, it examines the relationship between firm digitalization and sustainable development from the perspective of green technological innovation, revealing the path of compatibility between firm digitalization and sustainable development, which helps to provide policy insights for achieving economic green transformation. Third, it analyzes the heterogeneity of firm digitalization affecting green technological innovation based on the characteristics of firms and regions, helping to enrich the related research.

Key words: firm digitalization; green technological innovation; knowledge integration; information sharing

DOI：10.16538/j.cnki.jfe.20211218.304

收稿日期：2021-7-10

基金项目：国家社会科学基金重大项目（18ZDA050）

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