Corporate Social Responsibility and Green Technology Innovation: The Moderating Role of Stakeholders

Abstract

With economic globalization, sustainable development has become the preferred choice of enterprises facing fierce competition. Innovation is the primary driving force of development. As the driving force of sustainable development, green technology innovation (GTI) is crucial for enterprises. As a key influencing factor for green technological innovation, corporate social responsibility (CSR) behavior has received increasing attention. Based on stakeholder theory, stakeholders influence enterprises’ long-term strategic development goals. This study aims to examine the importance of CSR in advancing GTI and the involvement of stakeholders. Thus, this study selected Chinese A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2020 as research objects and used fixed-effects regression models. The results identify the positive effects of CSR on GTI. This study also divided the stakeholders into different groups and elucidated, from different stakeholder perspectives, the positive moderating effects of government environmental subsidies, investor attention, and executive environmental attention on the relationship between CSR and GTI. This study verifies the direct impact of CSR on GTI, enriches the theoretical foundations of stakeholder theory and resource-based theory, and provides practical suggestions for enterprises to improve their social and environmental performance and green development. It also reveals the cognitive roles of governments, investors, and executives in environmental protection and governance, which will help Chinese enterprises to better fulfil their social responsibility, improve their own green technological innovation, and achieve sustainable development.