This paper examines the impact of environmental uncertainty and environmental regulation on enterprises’ green technological innovation, using a panel data of Chinese A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2005 to 2019 to conduct an empirical study using an OLS model and Poisson regression model. We employ environmental complexity and environmental dynamism to measure environmental uncertainty, and we have the following findings: first, both environmental uncertainty and environmental regulation promote enterprises’ green technological innovation, while environmental regulation has positive moderating effects on the relationship between environmental uncertainty and enterprises’ green technological innovation; second, environmental complexity positively affects enterprises’ green technological innovation, while environmental dynamism has negative effects on enterprises’ green technological innovation; third, environmental regulation accentuates the relationship between environmental complexity and green technological innovation, while it weakens the relationship between environmental dynamism and green technological innovation.

The paper analyzes the effect of environmental uncertainty on corporate technological innovation from the perspective of an innovation value chain under the institutional background of China. This paper not only discusses the intermediary effect of agency problems on environmental uncertainty and corporate technological innovation but also deeply explores the influence of information transparency, government subsidies, and other mechanisms to alleviate agency problems on environmental uncertainty and corporate technological innovation. We use the data of listed companies in China from 2008 to 2019 as the research sample, and the results show that, in general, environmental uncertainty has a negative effect on both input and output of technological innovation, and the negative effect can last for two years. Further research shows that the agency problem has an intermediary effect on the environmental uncertainty and corporate technology innovation, and the environmental uncertainty aggravates the agency problem, which hinders the input and output of corporate technology innovation. As an important mechanism to alleviate the agency problems, information transparency and government subsidies can effectively alleviate the agency conflict, thus reducing the inhibition of environmental uncertainty on the input and output of technological innovation. Our findings contribute to the discussion of driving factors for technological innovation in the context of China’s system. Our results provide useful insights into the link between environmental uncertainty and corporate innovation for economic academics and practitioners alike.