Purpose: Previous studies have mostly discussed the impact of environmental policy on enterprise innovation, but the discussion on how turbulence in environmental policy may affect firms' green innovation has been insufficient. This paper explores the effect of environmental policy uncertainty on corporate green innovation in the turnover of environmental protection officials (EPOT) context.Design/methodology/approach: The authors manually collected the data on the EPOT of 280 Chinese prefecture-level cities, and used the Poisson regression model to conduct empirical analyses based on the panel data of 1472 Chinese listed manufacturing firms from 2008 to 2017.Findings: The results show that environmental policy uncertainty leads firms to reduce their green patent applications only for green invention patent applications. Such an effect is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs). In addition, when the new directors of the Ecology and Environmental Bureau take office through promotions or are no more than 55 years old, the negative effect is more obvious, but there is no significant difference regardless of whether new directors have worked in environmental protection departments.Originality/value: First, this paper supplements the research on the antecedents of corporate green innovation from the perspective of environmental policy uncertainty and extends the applications of real options theory. Second, this paper expands the research on the government–business relationship from the EPOT perspective.

The inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) has both advanced China’s economic development process and influenced the ecological quality of China’s regions. Under the deepening of economic globalization and the continuous deterioration in environmental quality, the correlation mechanism between foreign direct investment, environmental regulation, and economic growth is becoming increasingly complex. Therefore, based on the slacks-based measure (SBM) model and the Global Malmquist-Luenberger (GML) index, this study measured the level of green economic growth using data from 30 provinces and cities from 2004–2019 and constructed a panel fixed-effect regression model to study the effect of foreign direct investment on green economic growth in China. The study found that foreign direct investment significantly promoted green economic growth in China, foreign direct investment promoted green economic growth through independent innovation and inhibited green economic growth through imitation innovation, and environmental regulation moderated the impact of foreign direct investment on green economic growth. This paper incorporated foreign direct investment, heterogeneous technological innovation, green economic growth, and environmental regulation into the research framework, and thereby further enriched and improved the research on the theoretical mechanism of green economic growth. The research conclusion clarified the influence mechanism of foreign capital on the quality of China’s economic development, which was conducive to the formulation of more reasonable policies for attracting investments and to the promotion of the formation of a positive interaction mechanism between environmental regulation and foreign direct investment, which is of great practical significance for China’s economy to achieve sustainable development.

This research examines the linkage between entrepreneurial orientation and sustainable innovation. Research shows that the effects of entrepreneurial orientation on the exploitation and exploration of sustainable innovation are significantly positive, whereby absorptive capacity acts in a significant mediating role. The interaction between entrepreneurial orientation and absorptive capacity helps organizations overcome organizational inertia and strengthen the sustainability of innovation. By introducing the absorptive capacity theory and the view of organizational inertia, we have conducted empirical research on 392 Chinese environmentally friendly companies that have passed China’s national high-tech enterprise certification. We verified the relevant hypotheses in our framework in a structural model analysis using Mplus. To further look at the interaction terms of potential and realized absorptive capacity, we used PROCESS in SPSS to evaluate the conditional effects of absorptive capacity on coefficient paths between entrepreneurial orientation and the two types of innovation. The results show that entrepreneurial orientation improves the absorptive capacity of organizations, thereby promoting their sustainable innovation. Furthermore, based on the theory of sustainable innovation, we proved the positive impact of realized and potential absorptive capacity on the exploitation and exploration of sustainable innovation. Organizations could balance exploitation and exploration to implement sustainable innovation by adjusting their potential and realized absorptive capacities. Our results can help environmentally friendly organizations adjust the combination of entrepreneurial orientation and absorptive capacity to overcome organizational inertia, manage exploitation and exploration, and implement sustainable innovation.

Under the background of the initial completion of Chinese interest rate marketization process, this paper aims to test the actual impact of interest rate marketization on micro-enterprise research and development (R&D) investments financing. Based on the current situation, we put forward the assumption that Chinese enterprises are generally facing financing constraints in R&D investment. The interest rate marketization, which reduced government intervention in fund pricing, helps alleviate financing constraints, especially for non-state-owned enterprises. This paper focuses on the moderating effect of interest rate marketization on financing constraints and R&D investments. The interest rate marketization index is constructed from three indicators: interest rate determination ways, interest rate fluctuation restrictions, and real interest rate level. We use the Euler-equation investment model to test the financing constraints of R&D investment. Based on panel data of listed firms for 2007–2016, we find that R&D investment faces wide financing constraints, and interest rate marketization alleviates financing constraints. More specifically, financing constraints are more significant for non-state-owned firms than for state-owned enterprises, and the deepening marketization of interest rates can effectively alleviate the financing constraints of non-state-owned enterprises.

Green knowledge management represents a critical strategic resource for firms, enabling the acquisition, integration, and application of environmentally relevant knowledge to support green technological advancement. However, the mechanisms by which green knowledge management fosters green technology innovation remain underexplored. Grounded in the dynamic capabilities theory perspective, this research develops a moderated mediation framework to investigate how green knowledge management, through dynamic capabilities, impacts green technology innovation, particularly considering the moderating effects of green organizational identity and incentive environmental regulation. Using responses collected from 358 enterprises in China, the proposed framework was validated through hierarchical regression analysis, combined with the PROCESS procedure. The empirical findings demonstrate that green knowledge management strengthens firms’ dynamic capabilities, which in turn promote green technology innovation. Specifically, absorptive and transformative capability serve as partial mediators in the relationship between green knowledge management and green technology innovation. Furthermore, green organizational identity strengthens the positive effect of green knowledge management on dynamic capabilities, while incentive environmental regulation enhances the impact of dynamic capabilities on green technology innovation. These findings advance understanding of how green knowledge management promotes firms’ green technological development by activating and leveraging dynamic capabilities, thereby yielding important contributions to theoretical research and managerial practice.

In this paper, the innovation patent data of 344 Chinese Global Exchange Market (GEM) listed companies from 2014 to 2018 is manually collected, and the effect of returnee technology executives (RTEs) on enterprise innovativeness is examined based on the empirical theory of the high ladder team. The study finds that RTEs promote enterprise innovation and that this effect persists after controlling for endogeneity and self-selection problems. By comparing the difference in the effect of RTEs on breakthrough innovation and non-breakthrough innovation, the study found that RTEs had a more significant role in promoting enterprise breakthrough innovation. Furthermore, through executive group analysis, it is found that Returnee Technology Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) have more potently positive effect on promoting enterprise innovation especially breakthrough innovation and RTEs exert greater prominence in fostering innovation in companies across developed coastal areas. The research theoretically expands and deepens the investigation on the rapport between enterprise executive characteristics and innovation, highlights the importance of the human capital of overseas returnees in practice, and has a certain guiding significance for enterprise talent introduction policies.