Literature Review and Research Prospect on the Drivers and Effects of Green Innovation

Abstract

With increasing and global environmental and climate problems, green innovation has become an important means to solve the environmental crisis. With the increasing practice of green innovation in enterprises, scholars at home and abroad have discussed the drivers and effects of green innovation from different perspectives. Based on an analysis of 119 articles about the drivers and effects of green innovation in top international journals from 2006 to 2021, this paper tries to find the consistencies and contradictions of research conclusions and to explore the possible research opportunities, sorting out the main theoretical mechanisms of the existing research on the drivers and effects of green innovation, pinpointing the consistency of these theoretical perspectives in explaining the different drivers and effects of green innovation, and putting forward research prospects. The results show that the drivers of green innovation include two kinds of factors: environment and organization. The pressure of external environment and system drives enterprises to adopt green innovation practices to cater to isomorphic factors, to obtain more environmental performance, and to improve organizational legitimacy. The lack of development resources, such as knowledge and technology, within an organization drives enterprises to carry out green innovation practices and enhance organizational competitive advantage by learning and absorbing new external knowledge, new technology and other resources. In addition, resource-based view and institutional theory are two commonly used theoretical perspectives, and their theoretical logic obtains consistent support in explaining the drivers and effects of enterprise green innovation.

1. Introduction

The rapid development of science and technology has brought not only great convenience to human life, but also great challenges, such as global warming, destruction of ecological environment, and excessive consumption of resources [1], to the further development of human beings,. In this context emerges the concept of green innovation. This refers to those innovative activities that promote the coordinated development of the economy, of society and of the environment under the guidance of a new development philosophy by using advanced technology to reduce the destruction and pollution of the ecological environment and to improve the utilization rate of resources [2]. This has aroused global concern and discussion [3]. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019 once again made mankind aware of the importance of green innovation and development. China is both an advocate and a practitioner of green innovation. In September 2020, President Xi Jinping proposed in a statement at the General Debate of the 75th Session of the United Nations General Assembly that China should strive to achieve a peak in carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and carbon neutralization by 2060 [4]. At the same time, China’s 14th Five-Year Plan clearly regards “accelerating the promotion of green and low-carbon development” as an important goal [5]. It can be seen that promoting green innovation is particularly important to the harmonious coexistence of man and nature, the sustainable development of the social economy and the realization of a better life for human beings.

In the field of green innovation, some scholars have carried out research from the perspective of institutional theory, and analyzed the impact of environmental regulation, environmental supervision and green development policies on enterprise green innovation [6,7,8]; some scholars, from a resource-based perspective, have discussed the impact of knowledge base, knowledge sharing, and knowledge absorption capacity on enterprise green innovation [9,10,11]; and, from the perspective of managers’ characteristics and stakeholders, some scholars have verified the relationship between a CEO’s personal characteristics, a manager’s environmental attention, stakeholder pressure and enterprise green innovation [12,13,14]. It is not hard to see that scholars at home and abroad have approached the issue of green innovation from different perspectives, and the results have been fruitful. Special attention has been paid to the drivers and effects of green innovation, but the fragmentation of research conclusions also brings certain challenges to more in-depth research in the future. For one thing, the existing research has obtained some contradictory conclusions on the same type of influencing factors from different theoretical perspectives [15,16]. How to understand the theoretical mechanism and boundary conditions behind these research conclusions? For another, scholars have carried out in-depth research on different types of influencing factors, but there is very little discussion in the literature about the relationships between the different factors. Is there a relationship between different types of influencing factors? How can one efficiently promote enterprise green innovation in practice? In order to deal with these challenges, it is necessary to systematically sort out the different types of drivers and effects, research conclusions, theoretical mechanisms and possible research hypotheses of green innovation in the existing research, with a view to providing support for further theoretical exploration and innovation in the field of green innovation in the context of China.

The content and possible contributions of this paper are as follows:

Firstly, it organizes and classifies the drivers and effects of green innovation, pinpointing the consistency and contradiction of research conclusions and exploring possible research opportunities by reviewing the relevant literature; secondly, it summarizes the regulatory factors and mediating mechanisms of the drivers and effects of green innovation, looks for the possible relationship between different types of influencing factors, and discusses the potential optimization path to promote green innovation; finally, it sorts out the core theoretical mechanism of the existing research, seeks out the consistency of these theoretical perspectives in explaining the different drivers and effects of green innovation, and puts forward the research prospect.

2. Research Design

2.1. Research Ideas

Green innovation refers to the innovative activities in which enterprises make use of advanced technology to achieve economic growth while giving consideration to environmental protection. Generally speaking, enterprises will pay attention to the drivers and effects of green innovation when adopting green innovation strategy. As shown in Figure 1, the implementation of a green innovation strategy includes three stages: strategic decision-making, strategic implementation and strategic effect. In the strategic decision-making stage, the enterprise makes a thorough and comprehensive analysis of the environmental factors (including external environment and internal organization) in order to make strategic decisions that are most conducive to the development of the organization; in the strategic implementation stage, the enterprise informs the employees of the green innovation strategy and the detailed implementation plan, organizing and then carrying out the related work; in the strategic effect stage, the main focus is to evaluate the effect of the implementation of the green innovation strategy, to analyze the reasons and to decide whether it can promote the cycle of the next round of green innovation strategy.

According to the stages of the implementation of green innovation strategy, two research themes are mainly considered: one is the driving forces of green innovation; the other is the strategic effect of implementing green innovation. In the third part, this article will review the main literature on the drivers and effects of green innovation, including moderating effect and mediating factors, and determine the core theoretical mechanisms involved in the relevant literature, discussing the consistency of different theoretical logics in explaining the drivers and effects of green innovation.

2.2. Research Methods

We used the method of data mining to mine in-depth information of international green innovation text data, on this basis, we determined the research progress and theoretical contribution of the drivers and effects of green innovation, exploring possible research opportunities in the future.

2.3. Data Sources and Descriptive Statistics

The sample data we studied came from the core database of Web of Science. Firstly, the core collection was selected by using the basic retrieval function of Web of Science database, and a rough retrieval was carried out with “green innovation”, “environmental innovation”, “ecological innovation” as the keywords. Then, the literature type “Article” was selected with the time of “2006–2021” by using the refining function of the database to clean the data. A total of 863 articles were screened out, and their years of publication are shown in Figure 2. Figure 2 shows an upward trend indicating that it has become a hot topic.

On the basis of the above literature retrieval and through referring to the data processing methods of relevant review articles [17,18], we selected the top journals in environmental science, green sustainability, enterprise management, environmental engineering, economics, and other related fields, and refined them with “Antecedents OR Drivers OR Determinants OR Outcome OR Consequences” as the retrieval sentence. Eventually, 174 main articles were selected on the drivers and effects of green innovation. The distributions of research areas and journal sources are shown in

Table 1. Field distribution of literature on the drivers and effects of green innovation.

Research Field	Number of Papers
Environmental Sciences	82
Environmental Studies	78
Green Sustainable Science Technology	74
Business	61
Management	60
Engineering Environmental	33
Regional Urban Planning	16
Economics	14
Development Studies	6
Engineering Industrial	4
Engineering Manufacturing	4
Ethics	4
Public Environmental Occupational Health	4
Energy Fuels	3
Multidisciplinary Sciences	3
Information Science Library Science	2

and

Table 2. Source distribution of literature on the drivers and effects of green innovation.

Source Periodical	Number of Papers
JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION	33
SUSTAINABILITY	32
BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT	29
TECHNOLOGICAL FORECASTING AND SOCIAL CHANGE	10
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND POLLUTION RESEARCH	6
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT	6
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT	5
ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCE ECONOMICS	4
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH	4
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS ETHICS	4
JOURNAL OF MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT	4
ASIAN JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION	3
ENERGY POLICY	3
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF INNOVATION MANAGEMENT	3
RESEARCH POLICY	3
SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION	3
TECHNOLOGY ANALYSIS STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT	3
AFRICAN JOURNAL OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT	2
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT JOURNAL	2
INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION	2
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS RESEARCH	2
JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT	2
JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT	2
ORGANIZATION ENVIRONMENT	2
REVIEW OF MANAGERIAL SCIENCE	2
SMALL BUSINESS ECONOMICS	2
MANAGEMENT DECISION	1

, respectively. Based on these 174 main studies, we further conducted manual screening by reading the abstract and research design of each literature, and eliminated papers that had keywords such as green innovation, motivation or effect, but did not deal with innovation drivers and effects, 119 highly relevant literatures were selected as the main sample literature for review.

3. Evolution of Research Theme and Its Theoretical Contribution

From the above analysis, it can be seen that the research progress of the drivers and effects of green innovation is a major concern for both theoretical researchers and practical subjects. Therefore, we will further summarize and review the specific drivers, effects, and moderating and mediating factors of green innovation in the sample literature, in order to clarify the development and progress of the drivers and effects of green innovation.

3.1. Drivers Driving Enterprises to Carry out Green Innovation

The drivers of green innovation are shown in

Table 3. Drivers of green innovation.

Strategic Motivation	Motivation Category	Specific Motivation
Internal organizational motivation	Strategic and cultural factors	Green business/innovation strategy, green market orientation, environmental orientation, customer orientation, proactive environmental strategy, green organizational culture, adaptability of green culture, corporate culture
	Resource and capability factors	Knowledge base, knowledge sharing, knowledge source, knowledge absorption capacity, green human resource management, human resource quality; advanced manufacturing technology, technological capability, technological trajectory; dynamic capability, coordination ability, profitability, ecological organizational ability, team restructuring ability
	Executive characteristic factors	CEO’s overseas experience, politically connected CEO, CEO hometown identity, green transition leadership, leaders’ voluntary workplace green behavior, top management commitment, sustainable leadership, executive environmental awareness, management agreement, entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship
	Stakeholders and other internal factors	Stakeholder pressure, green supply chain management/integration/learning, supply chain collaboration, management of environmental issues, export intensity, network potential, corporate environmental responsibility, internationalization, corporate green relaxation, green shared vision, corporate life cycle stage, fairness, embeddedness, open innovation, ownership, previous green innovation experience, cooperative activities
External environmental motivation	Policy environment	Environmental regulation, environmental inspection, environmental regulations, environmental policy, new environmental protection laws, research and development subsidies, legal pressure, government support, government pressure
	Market environment	Green market pressure, competitor pressure, market demand, green demand, market turbulence
	Social environment	Social impact, public supervision, environmental uncertainty, network embeddedness, network diversity

Data sources: collated by the author according to the relevant literature.

. Internal organizational factors and external environmental factors are the two key factors that drive enterprises to carry out green innovation. For enterprises, this can meet the needs of the internal development of the organization, while also being conducive to the establishment of a corporate image and to enhanced external competitiveness. The drivers that drive enterprises to carry out green innovation vary under different organizational and environmental conditions.

3.1.1. Internal Organizational Factors

(1)

Strategic and cultural factors

Organizational strategy usually points out the direction of future development of the organization. If green-innovation-related strategies are included in the organizational strategy, it will be more beneficial for the organization to implement green innovation practice in the future. For example, the research conducted by Yahya et al. [19] shows that a green management strategy can significantly improve the attitude of small enterprises towards green innovation. Soewarno et al. [20] confirm that a green innovation strategy has a positive impact on green innovation. Ryszko [21] finds that proactive environmental strategies have a strong impact on technological ecological innovation. In addition, the orientation of organizational development also defines the direction and focus of the future development of an organization. Therefore, the adoption of a green market orientation is conducive to the promotion of green innovation [22,23]. Empirical studies by Aboelmaged [24] and Hojnik et al. [25] show that environmental orientation has a significant positive impact on ecological innovation practice and environmental output. Furthermore, organizational culture, a code of conduct that members of an organization abide by in the process of long-term development, has a subtle influence on the developmental direction of the organization. If an organization has a green-related corporate culture, the higher the enthusiasm to carry out green innovation it has. For example, studies by Wang [26] and Sharma et al. [27] show that the adaptability of green organizational culture and green culture is conducive to promoting green innovation practice.

(2)

Resources and capacity factors

Knowledge resources are the key resources for enterprises to carry out innovation activities. The knowledge base, knowledge sources and knowledge absorption capacity of enterprises have a significant impact on the green innovation of enterprises. Therefore, enterprises should enhance their ability to absorb, transfer and adapt new knowledge to improve the performance of green innovation [9]. For example, research by Ben Arfi et al. [28] shows that the combination of internal and external knowledge has the most important impact on all stages of the green innovation process; that is, the breadth and depth of knowledge sources and the mutual transformation among different knowledge sources have a positive and significant impact on green innovation [29,30]. In addition, human resources and technological factors also have a significant impact on enterprise green innovation [31]. Some scholars have confirmed that both green human resource management and human resource quality play a positive role in promoting enterprise green innovation [32,33,34]. There is a positive correlation between advanced manufacturing technology and technological capability and enterprise green innovation [35,36]. Technological trajectories such as opportunity identification and market decision-making are conducive to the development of ecological innovation and the realization of green innovation [37]. Capability factor is essential for an organization to achieve development, and some previous studies have shown that the direct and indirect impact of capability factors on enterprise green innovation practice is positive and significant [38]. For example, Huang and Li [39] used questionnaires to collect relevant data such as dynamic capability and coordination capability. The interviewees were CEOs or managers familiar with the company’s environmental activities. Structural equation models were used to verify the research hypotheses and their results show that dynamic capability and coordination capability are important driving forces of enterprise green innovation. Rabadan et al. [40] analyzed the influence of cooperative activities and the combination of resources and capabilities on the internal development of ecological innovation in traditional industries by using QCA method, and found that the combination of profitability, technological ability and ecological organizational ability is conducive to the independent development of ecological innovation. In addition, some scholars have calculated team reorganization ability based on an invention activity information carried out by the patent inventor or team, and verified its impact on green innovation. The results of these calculations show that the stronger the team knowledge reorganization ability, the easier it is for the organization to develop green technology and to realize the green innovation strategy [41].

(3)

Characteristic factors of senior executives

Senior managers play a key role in the process of corporate innovation. Their personal characteristics, such as academic experience and environmental awareness, and preferences therefore play an important role in the promotion of corporate green innovation [42,43]. For example, Quan et al. [12] used the data of Chinese listed companies to prove that there is a positive correlation between a CEO’s overseas experience and corporate green innovation. This correlation is mainly established through environmental ethics (CSR, environmental protection, and green innovation) and general abilities (creativity, problem solving, leadership, and information processing) promoted by the CEO’s overseas experience. Huang et al. [44], and other studies, have found that CEOs with political relationships can promote green innovation—the stronger the relationship, the better. This is because a CEO with political relationships can bring more social capital to enterprises, such as tax breaks, government subsidies and government support, while social capital can improve the risk tolerance of executives, so that they can boldly try risky green innovation. Ren et al. [45] argue that a CEO’s hometown identity has a positive impact on corporate green innovation as well. Besides, green transformational leadership [46], voluntary workplace green behavior [47] and sustainable leadership [48] all have a direct or indirect impact on enterprise green innovation and environmental innovation. More studies have shown that top management commitment [49], management agreement [50] and entrepreneurship [51] play an important positive role in ecological innovation and sustainable development. To sum up, senior managers of enterprises should enhance their entrepreneurial spirit by improving their technical and overseas experience, political background and environmental awareness, so as to promote the practice of green innovation.

(4)

Stakeholders and other internal factors

At present, scholars have not reached a consensus on the impact of stakeholder pressure on corporate green innovation. Some scholars believe that stakeholder pressure has a positive impact on corporate green innovation [14,52], whilst others contend that there is no important evidence indicating that there is a relationship between corporate green practice and stakeholder pressure [53]. A possible reason for the variance in these research conclusions is that scholars study different industries. Comparative studies are necessary in the future to further explore the impact of stakeholder pressure on the practice of green innovation. In addition, supply chain is an important support for enterprises to carry out innovation practice, and the relationship between supply chain partners has a significant impact on green innovation performance [54]. Green supply chain management, integration and learning play a direct or indirect role in promoting enterprise green innovation [55,56,57,58]. Therefore, enterprises can promote the implementation of green innovation strategy by improving the ability of green supply chain management. Some scholars have also studied the impact of other internal factors on enterprise green innovation, such as the management environment [59], export intensity [60], network potential [61], enterprise life cycle stage [62] and so on. In a word, enterprises should promote the practice of green innovation by enhancing the knowledge related to innovation within the organization and the ability of ecological organization management.

3.1.2. External Environmental Factors

(1)

Policy environment

Environmental policy is an important driving factor for enterprises to carry out green technology change [63], and has an important impact on enterprise green innovation. Studies by Qi et al. [64] and Ali et al. [65] show that environmental regulatory pressure has a positive impact on enterprise green technology innovation; Qi et al. [66] suggest that, when a market system is not sound, enterprises with a high environmental ability environmental inspection have positive and significant impacts on green innovation. In addition, the stricter the environmental regulations, the more encouraging it is for enterprises to implement green innovation [67]. Studies by Liu et al. [68] indicate that enterprises are more inclined to carry out green innovation activities after the strict implementation of China’s new Environmental Protection Law. Other studies have shown that research and development subsidies are conducive to increasing the efficiency of the green innovation of enterprises [69]; that legitimate pressure has a significant positive impact on green innovation of enterprises [70]; that government support and government pressure are also important factors to promote the implementation of green innovation in enterprises [71,72]; but that other scholars have found that government support has little effect on promoting green innovation in transportation enterprises [34]. Therefore, the relevant government departments should formulate targeted environmental policies and regulations to encourage enterprises to carry out green innovation practices according to the development of the local economy and market. In the future, more studies can be conducted on the favorable conditions under which environmental policy can play a positive role in enterprise green innovation, and comparative studies between different industries are important as well.

(2)

Market environment

Market environment is an important external factor that can influence the implementation of green innovation activities. El-Kassar et al. [73] believe that market demand for green products has a direct impact on green innovation; Zailani et al. [74] argue that market demand has a positive impact on green innovation activities; while Wong [75] points out that green demand can indirectly promote green innovation through knowledge sharing. These different conclusions may result from differences in research samples. In the future, researchers should select samples from different regions and make comparative analyses to further verify the relationship between market demand and green innovation. In addition, there have been more studies that show that market volatility can promote green product innovation [76], that green market pressure has a direct and indirect positive impact on radical green innovation [77], and that competitor pressure has a significant and positive impact on green innovation practice [72].

(3)

Social environment

The social environment has great uncertainty, which indirectly promotes the sustainable development behavior of enterprises [65]. The social impact of enterprise development, especially e-commerce enterprises, has a significant positive impact on their intention to adopt green innovation [78]. In addition, with the increasing public environmental awareness, public supervision plays a significant role in promoting the breakthrough ecological innovation of enterprises [79]. For their own development, enterprises will seek ways to enhance green innovation and develop their own social networks, and the embeddedness and diversity of the network will in turn promote the performance of green innovation [80]. In the future, we can further explore the deeper relationship between the development of social network relationships and enterprise green innovation from the perspective of social networks.

3.2. Strategic Effects of Green Innovation in Enterprises

The strategic effect brought by the implementation of green innovation is another important issue of concern to theoretical researchers and practical subjects. Therefore, we established the strategic effects of adopting green innovation in enterprises as shown in Figure 3. Under the influence of driving factors, enterprises carry out green innovation practice, which brings internal and external strategic effects, so as to realize the increment of enterprise value [81]. Enterprise value is the discounted value of the estimated future cash flow that an enterprise can create.

(1)

Internal effect

The internal effect of green innovation on enterprises is mainly reflected in enterprise performance. First of all, in order to adapt to the changes of the external environment and the needs of organizational survival and development, enterprises usually formulate green innovation development strategies, so as to improve enterprise performance and achieve sustainable development. Surveys of wine companies, conducted by Leenders et al. [82], have confirmed that the more direct selling channels an enterprise has, the more beneficial the green innovation is to corporate performance. Woo et al. [83] conducted an empirical study to examine the impact of green innovation on labor productivity based on Korean innovation survey data, and the results show that green innovation, considering the interests of both enterprises and customers, has a positive impact on labor productivity. This discovery means that if enterprises want to improve corporate performance, they need to implement both enterprise-oriented and customer-oriented green innovation. The study of Cheng et al. [84] into three types of ecological innovation—technique, product and organization—and their impact on enterprise performance, suggests that ecological organization innovation has the greatest impact on enterprise performance; in addition, ecological process and eco-product innovation partially mediate the impact of eco-organization innovation, while eco-product innovation mediates the impact of eco-process innovation on enterprise performance. Therefore, managers should understand the interdependence and co-evolution of different types of ecological innovation in order to formulate effective ecological innovation plans and improve enterprise performance.

Secondly, scholars have not reached a consensus on the effect of green innovation on corporate financial performance. For example, Liao [85] takes manufacturing and service enterprises as research samples and confirms that the three dimensions of environmental innovation (ecological organization, ecological technique, ecological product innovation) can promote the financial performance of enterprises. Nguyen et al. [86] segmented customer-oriented green innovation into three types—process initiative, green minimalism, green initiative—and studied their impact on enterprise financial performance. Their results show that, compared with other enterprises, process-active enterprises have made significant improvements in financial indices such as market share and profit. Aguilera-Caracuel et al. [87], however, conducted a contrastive study of green innovation enterprises and non-green innovation enterprises, and found that, compared with non-green innovation enterprises, the financial performance of green innovation enterprises has not been improved. The reason for the difference in the above research conclusions may lie in the different choice of research samples, industries, etc. Therefore, to further verify the relationship between green innovation and financial performance, cases of different industries and contexts should be discussed separately, and researchers can use the same sample to conduct replication research.

Last but not least, all studies agree that enterprise green innovation practice has a positive effect on corporate non-financial performance. In recent years, in order to meet the challenges of global environmental problems, sustainable innovation strategy has become an essential competitive factor in the improvement of enterprise performance; in other words, in order to improve environmental performance, enterprises can focus on updating their operating processes or developing more environmentally friendly new products [88], that is, implementing green innovation practices. The research shows that the green innovation ability of enterprises is conducive to the success of new products [23], and the main output of green innovation includes not only financial performance, but also non-financial performance such as green performance [27]. The improvement of an enterprise’s non-financial performance can help establish an environment-friendly corporate image, while leaving a good impression on consumers, thus having the opportunity to expand market share, which is conducive to the sustainable development of enterprises.

(2)

External effect

Enterprise green innovation not only produces strategic effects within the organization, but also produces corresponding external effects. Studies reveal that green innovation helps enhance the competitive advantage of enterprises [26], where green product innovation affects competitive advantage via environmental performance, and green process innovation affects competitive advantage via environmental and organizational performance [73]. More studies have shown that market volatility, such as fierce competition, unpredictable customer preference and technological change, strengthens the positive impact of eco-organizational innovation on corporate social performance [88]. In addition, the practice of green innovation can improve customer cooperation [49]. The strengthening of customer cooperation is beneficial for enterprises to build up relationships through which enterprises can increase their green innovation performance and accumulate customer capital [89], the increase of which is conducive to the sustainable development of the enterprise and the realization of enterprise value.

To sum up, green innovation is beneficial to enterprises with poor financial and market performance. This is because the implementation of green innovation can improve consumer purchases by reaching a consensus with consumers’ awareness of environmental protection and meeting consumers’ demand for green products, so as to improve the financial performance and market performance of enterprises. At the same time, green innovation is also helpful to enterprises with poor non-financial performance, because the implementation of green innovation means that they consciously fulfill their corporate social responsibility and help to establish an environment-friendly corporate image, so as to obtain improved environmental, green and other non-financial performances. In addition, the implementation of green innovation can enable enterprises to gain relative competitive advantage in market competition by improving financial and non-financial performance, so as to attract more customer cooperation and accumulate rich customer capital. Of course, the strategic effect of enterprise green innovation not only depends on the green innovation practice and its achievements but is also closely related to the market environment and the characteristics of the enterprise itself. For example, when polluting enterprises are more active in carrying out green innovation activities, they have more opportunities to obtain more strategic benefits.

3.3. Moderating Factors of the Drivers and Effects of Green Innovation

We collated the main moderating factors of the drivers and effects of green innovation in the sample literature. The results are as shown in

Table 4. Moderating factors of the drivers and effects of green innovation.

Moderating Factors	Moderating Variable Category	Specific Moderating Variable
Internal moderating factors	Strategic and cultural factors	Innovation orientation, environmental strategy, green brand positioning, green organizational culture, lean culture, cultural background
	Learning and organizational ability	Absorptive capacity, green knowledge acquisition, knowledge integration, relationship learning, environmental compliance
	Manager behavior/characteristics	Green transformational leadership, environmental attention/environmental awareness of managers, education level of senior executives/key posts
External moderating factors	Market factor	Market volatility, market competition, market complexity
	Social environment	Environmental instability, institutions, intensity of environmental law enforcement/strictness of environmental policy, environmental regulation, volatility of green technology, tenure of officials, state ownership
Other moderating factors		Enterprise scale, international experience, channel structure, analyst reporting, stakeholder pressure, corporate profitability, labor market composition, customer relationship management, female leaders, green innovation experience, energy efficiency, human resources practice

Data sources: collated by the author according to the relevant literature.

, in which the moderating factors are divided into three categories: internal moderating factors, external moderating factors and other moderating factors. Accurately understanding the moderating factors of the drivers and effects of green innovation—the boundary conditions of causality—can help enterprises best manage the timing to carry out green innovation practice, so as to obtain more strategic benefits and realize enterprise value. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to explore the moderating factors of the drivers and effects of green innovation. Because green innovation and its drivers and effects constitute a complete causal chain, that is, driving factor-green innovation-strategic effect, there is a close relationship between them. Therefore, the moderating factors of green innovation drivers and effects are analyzed together. In addition, because the specific variables and the relationship between the variables concerned by different scholars are different, it can be found that in different studies the same factor sometimes appears as mediating in the relation between drivers and green innovation and sometimes in the relation between green innovation and effects.

3.3.1. Internal Moderating Factors

(1)

Strategic and cultural factors

The practice of an organization is carried out under the guidance of the organizational development strategy, the formulation of which is closely related to its organizational culture. Similarly, the enterprise green innovation practice is also carried out under the guidance of enterprise development strategy. Therefore, different organizational development strategies and culture will lead to different enterprise green innovation practice and results. Some scholars believe that innovation-orientation is a key driver to overcome obstacles and improve companies’ ability to successfully implement new systems, products and processes, and companies with a more innovative atmosphere will encourage and motivate employees to take innovative behavior; therefore, innovation orientation can improve the relationship between employee behavior and green innovation practice [72]. Other scholars believe that a company may have the green innovation ability to develop new products, however, the success of these new products depends on how well the company positions the new products in the eyes of customers; therefore, the impact of green innovation capability on the success of new products can be positively moderated by green brand positioning. [23]. In addition, positive environmental strategy can strengthen the green innovation of enterprises, and environmental strategy has an overall impact on environmental performance, so environmental strategy can moderate the impact of green innovation on environmental performance [33]. Other scholars have confirmed that cultural background can affect the impact of environmental regulations on environmental innovation and the relationship between organizational performance and environmental innovation [90]. For example, small enterprises introduce green organizational culture to improve employees’ attitudes towards green innovation [19], because the moral support and policy motivation provided by green organizational culture can make employees more motivated to do their work in a green way, while lean culture can actively affect the impact of process and equipment innovation on sustainable performance [91].

(2)

Learning and organizational ability

Knowledge is the basis of production and operation. The ability of an organization to acquire, absorb and integrate green knowledge has an impact on the green innovation and the performance of enterprises. The research shows that enterprises need to combine internal and external knowledge when carrying out green innovation under the pressure of external institutions and environment, and absorptive capacity helps to absorb and integrate external knowledge, improve the speed of green innovation, and increase the flexibility of enterprises to adapt to external pressure. Therefore, absorptive capacity can significantly and actively moderate the influence of institutions pressure and environmental factors on green technology innovation and performance [64,92]. Some scholars have confirmed that the acquisition of green knowledge can moderate the influence of green market orientation on the ability of green innovation [23]. Because green knowledge is an important resource to enhance the green innovation ability of enterprises, the acquisition of green knowledge helps green market-oriented enterprises to enrich their environmental resources to promote green innovation. In addition, the ability of an organization to learn and understand relationships helps enhance its absorption of external knowledge, and then improve the performance of green innovation [93]. It is noteworthy that the threats or opportunities perceived from environmental inspections can affect senior managers’ attention to green innovation strategies, so companies that are in compliance with the requirements of environmental inspections are more likely to invest in green innovation [66].

(3)

Behavior and characteristics of managers

The behavior and characteristics of managers play a key role in the direction of organizational development. For example, Cui et al. [77], based on the theory of transformational leadership, have confirmed that green transformational leadership plays a non-linear role in moderating the relationship between exploratory green learning and radical green innovation. Because green transformational leadership focuses on a series of behaviors aimed at protecting the environment and promoting sustainable development, paying attention to environmental performance and stimulating employees will affect green creativity in some way. Song et al. [32] have revealed that the indirect impact of green human resource management on green innovation through green human capital is significant for companies with high attention to the management environment. Because when senior managers pay close attention to environmental management, they can influence employees’ attitude towards environmental protection and stimulate employees’ green innovation behavior by sharing their beliefs and norms. Rui et al. [52] believe that entrepreneurs’ awareness of environmental protection makes them pay great attention to environmental protection, so as to alleviate the pressure of stakeholders due to environmental problems, and take the initiative to adopt green innovation practice. Therefore, entrepreneurs’ awareness of environmental protection actively moderate the relationship between stakeholder pressure and corporate green innovation. He et al. [43] argue that senior managers with academic backgrounds are better at promoting the acquisition and absorption of external knowledge, can use their strong information analysis ability to predict the future development direction of green innovation, and promote the success of green innovation. When senior management holds key posts or have a high level of education, they have greater decision-making power and personal influence, and their academic expertise has a more significant positive impact on corporate green innovation.

3.3.2. External Moderating Factors

(1)

Market factors

The market environment is the key external environment that enterprises face. Uncertain factors such as market volatility, fierce market competition and the complexity of the market environment have an important impact on the production and operation of enterprises. Under different market environments, the effects of enterprises’ green innovation strategy vary. Some studies have shown that market volatility has strengthened the positive impact of eco-organizational innovation on the social performance of technology companies [88]. When the degree of market volatility is high—and enterprises are faced with great external uncertainties—in order to gain a favorable position in the fierce market competition, enterprises usually choose to carry out activities that meet the needs of the market and shoulder more social and environmental responsibilities. Other scholars have confirmed that market competitiveness can affect the relationship between the foreign experience of a CEO and corporate green innovation. The weaker the competitiveness of an enterprise, the greater the positive impact of its CEO’s foreign experience on corporate green innovation [12], for it will bring more new knowledge to the enterprise, strengthen the knowledge base of the green innovation practice, and make the enterprise obtain more strategic benefits. Other scholars have found that market complexity positively affects the impact of a CEO’s hometown identity on corporate green innovation performance [45]. In a highly complex market, a native-born CEO pays more attention to the impact of corporate activities on the ecological environment of his or her hometown, making the enterprise shoulder more corporate social responsibilities and thus improving the performance of green innovation.

(2)

Social environment

The social environment refers to the macro external environment faced by enterprises, and the activities of enterprises are bound to be affected by it. For example, changes of environment, such as social system, environmental policy, environmental law enforcement, technical advancement, etc., result in different green innovation practice of enterprises and their strategic effects. Song et al. [61] believe that, when forming an important mechanism, changes in environment not only actively affect the relationship between absorptive capacity and green innovation, but also enhance the moderating effect of the former. In a turbulent external environment, in order to survive and develop, enterprises will actively absorb external knowledge and enhance their absorptive capacity, so as to promote the performance of green innovation. In addition, strict policies can improve the efficiency of knowledge re-engineering [41], and enhance the integration, absorption and transformation of knowledge, which is conducive to the practice of green innovation in enterprises. Lisi et al. [58] argue that the volatility of green technology strengthens the positive impact of green customer learning on green product and technique innovation, but meanwhile weakens the impact of green supplier learning on green technique innovation. It also shows that a moderating factor can exert a different influence over green innovation of various antecedents. Therefore, future research should expand the existing research ideas and verify the ranges of moderating factors that have already been proved by the academic community in the cases of different antecedents, which may provide the enterprises with more approaches to promote green innovation.

Other scholars have confirmed that the tenure of officials plays an inverted U-shaped role in affecting the impact of environmental regulations on enterprise green innovation [67]. What is also noteworthy is that state ownership has been proved to have a negative moderating effect on the relationship between the internationalization of research and development and green innovation [94]. In the future, further studies may be conducted to verify the moderating effect of enterprise ownership from the perspective of the heterogeneity of enterprise ownership.

3.3.3. Other Moderating Factors

Some scholars have verified the role of other moderating factors in the drivers and effects of green innovation, such as enterprise scale, stakeholder pressure, corporate profitability, labor market composition, customer relationship management, female leaders, green innovation experience, energy efficiency, human resources practice and so on. These are shown in Table 4 and will not be expounded on in this paper.

3.4. Mediating Mechanism of the Drivers and Effects of Green Innovation

We collated the main mediating factors of the drivers and effects of green innovation in the sample literature. The results are as shown in

Table 5. Mediating factors of the drivers and effects of green innovation.

Mediating Factor	Specific Mediating Variable
Learning factors	Relationship learning, green exploration learning, green development learning, market-centered learning, training
Resource factors	Knowledge creation (knowledge exchange, knowledge combination), knowledge sharing, green human capital/resources, green social capital, resource flexibility, resource management
Ability factors	Green innovation ability, absorptive capacity/realized absorptive capacity, general abilities, sustainability, relationship learning ability
Environment factors	Environmental ethics, internal cooperation, legitimacy of environmental organization, environmental law enforcement
Other factors	Technological characteristics, technological capabilities, green organizational identity, co-creation of green value; collaborative network, senior management support, research and development investment, embeddedness, knowledge management process, customer relationship management, green product characteristics, internal ecological innovation development, established ecological innovation practices, enterprise innovation

Data sources: collated by the author according to the relevant literature.

, in which mediating factors are divided into five types: learning factors, resource factors, ability factors, environment factors and other factors. Mediating effect is the mechanism of causality. The identification of the mediating factors of the drivers and effects of green innovation is beneficial for enterprises to adopt the correct methods to promote green innovation practice, so as to obtain more strategic benefits. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to identify and verify the mediating factors of the drivers and effects of green innovation.

(1)

Learning factors

Learning is an important means to obtain knowledge about innovation. With the advancement of information technology, enterprises can acquire knowledge about green innovation through relationship learning, so as to improve the performance of green innovation [89]. Some scholars have confirmed that sharing a green vision among organization members to acquire new environmental knowledge through green exploration learning and to improve existing environmental knowledge through green development learning promotes the performance of green innovation [95]. In addition, enterprises with customer-oriented corporate culture focus on customer preferences, and can obtain the latest information about customer preferences and competitors through market-centered learning, while the pursuit of environmentally friendly products is a major change in customer preferences, therefore, enterprises will adopt green products and process innovation to meet customer needs [96]. It is worth noting that training is also a mechanism of the effects of green innovation. Research shows that regulatory pressure has a significant positive impact on training, training can help motivate employees to re-position their traditional environmental views and adjust their behavior to improve environmental learning ability, thereby improving the performance of green innovation [97].

(2)

Resource factors

The internal and external resources owned by enterprises are the basis of green innovation. Internal resources include knowledge resources, human resources and so on; external resources consist of relationship resources and other social resources. The interaction of internal and external resources is the key for enterprises to achieve green innovation. Some scholars have confirmed that manufacturing enterprises enhance internal and external knowledge exchange and knowledge combination through green supply chain integration in order to obtain more accurate green knowledge and promote green innovation [57]. Other scholars have also confirmed that knowledge sharing can exert a significant mediating impact on the green innovation in sustainable supply chains [98], and knowledge sharing can also mediate the relationship between green demand and green product and technique innovation [75]. Green demand promotes knowledge sharing within enterprises to enhance the collective knowledge of the organization. Through effective knowledge sharing, enterprises can actively identify market opportunities caused by environmental requirements and carry out green innovation. In addition, some scholars believe that green human capital mediates the relationship between green innovation and its antecedents [32], while another scholar contends that sustainable human capital has no significant impact on green innovation [99]. The mediating effect of human capital on green innovation should be further verified in future research. Besides, the network embeddedness of enterprises is conducive to the accumulation of green social capital. Green social capital can integrate different types of green knowledge of different participants to achieve green innovation, thus promoting the performance of green innovation [80]. More studies have shown that executives with environmental awareness can promote the practice of green innovation through effective and efficient allocation of flexible resources [42]. Therefore, when enterprises are facing internal and external pressure, sustainable innovation can be achieved through efficient resource management [65].

(3)

Ability factors

Ability factor is the key factor for the success of enterprise practice. Research shows that the ability of green innovation has a direct impact on the success of new products of enterprises [23], while the ability of enterprises to absorb knowledge also directly affects green innovation and its performance. Some scholars have confirmed that the new knowledge obtained by green knowledge sharing must be combined with existing knowledge through absorptive capacity in order to effectively promote green innovation [10]. In addition, the dimension of network potential can also affect the performance of green innovation by affecting the ability of enterprises to absorb external green knowledge [61]. It is worth noting that the impact of absorptive capacity on the adoption of green innovation is mainly achieved through sustainable capabilities such as sustainable orientation and collaboration ability [99], because organizations interact with the external environment under the guidance of the enterprise sustainable development strategy, at the same time, good coordination and communication with participants can more effectively absorb external green knowledge and carry out green innovation. In addition, the potential absorptive capacity can better absorb external knowledge, carry out green innovation and improve the performance of green innovation on the basis of the realized absorptive capacity [100]. Scholars have confirmed that a CEO’s foreign experience influences enterprise green innovation through its general ability [12], and that dynamic abilities can affect green innovation performance by re-configuring relationship learning abilities [38].

(4)

Environment factors

In order to achieve sustainable development in an increasingly competitive environment, the development strategies of an enterprise must be appropriately adjusted with the changes of the environment. Although green innovation strategy can promote green innovation performance, the strategy itself is not enough, and one has to seek other ways to obtain environmental organizational legitimacy from stakeholders [20]. In other words, environmental organizational legitimacy is the mediating mechanism by which green innovation strategy affects green innovation performance. In addition, stakeholder pressure will force the enterprises to pay more attention to environmental ethics, which makes them more active to carry out green innovation practice [52]. Public supervision is conducive to strengthening environmental law enforcement and promoting the revolutionary ecological innovation of enterprises [79]. Therefore, corporate environmental ethics and environmental law enforcement are the mediating mechanism of the relationship between green innovation and its antecedents. Besides, more studies have shown that the application of advanced manufacturing technologies in terms of technique, design, and planning, can provide important resources and knowledge for green innovation, where internal collaboration plays an important mediating role [35]. This is because internal environment cooperation is an important channel of knowledge transfer between enterprises, which can realize the sharing of technical knowledge and promote green innovation. Therefore, the response of enterprises to the internal and external environment is crucial to the realization of green innovation.

(5)

Other factors

As with other mediating mechanisms concerning the drivers and effects of green innovation, many studies have been conducted. The conclusions are summarized in Table 5 and will not be explained in detail in this paper.

3.5. Analysis of the Core Theoretical Perspectives in the Research on the Drivers and Effects of Green Innovation

It can be seen from the above discussion that research has been conducted on the mechanisms and strategic effects of green innovation in enterprises from many theoretical perspectives. The main theories adopted in these studies are summarized in

Table 6. Theoretical perspectives of research on the drivers and effects of green innovation.

Research Topic	Main Theoretical Perspective	Secondary Theoretical Perspective
Green innovation drivers	Resource-based view (9), institutional theory (8), stakeholder theory (4), organizational learning theory (4)	social network theory (2), imprinting theory (2), natural-resource-basic view (1), upper echelons theory (1), knowledge theory (2), dynamic capabilities (1), theory of reasoned action (2), contingency theory (1), signal theory (1), human capital theory (1), ability, motivation and opportunity theory (1), attention-based view (1), equity theory (1), expectancy theory (1), transaction cost economics (1), social exchange theory (1), game theory (1), transformational leadership theory (1), absorptive capacity perspective (1), strategic choice theory (1)
Green innovation effect	Resource-based view (5), institutional theory (4), natural-resource-based view (3)	stakeholder theory (1), relationship theory (1), upper echelons theory (1), dynamic capabilities (1), social network theory (1)

Data sources: collated by the author according to the relevant literature.

. The mechanisms that drive enterprise green innovation vary from different theoretical perspectives, and there are differences in the strategic effects brought about by enterprise green innovation. A summary of these theoretical perspectives can help understand the core theoretical mechanisms in the research of enterprise green innovation and analyze the consistency of these theoretical mechanisms in explaining the drivers and effects of enterprise green innovation.

In the study of the drivers and effects of green innovation, resource-based view and institutional theory are two commonly adopted, and their theoretical logic obtains consistent support in explaining the drivers and effects of enterprise green innovation. Enterprise green innovation is a complex process, and the success of green innovation requires the joint action of internal and external factors, in which green knowledge and green technology are important resources needed for green innovation, organizational strategic support and green ability are the key to the success of green innovation. While the lack of green resources will limit the practice of green innovation and affect the sustainable development of enterprises. Therefore, the resource-based view is one of the theoretical perspectives favored by scholars when studying green innovation. The resource-based view assumes that organizations gain a sustainable competitive advantage through valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable, and organized emerging abilities or resources [40,101], in the light of which resources and capabilities such as absorptive capacity and technical capability [60,62], learning and organizing ability [9,38], corporate strategy and organizational culture [33,102], and manager behavior or characteristics [46,97] are factors that drive enterprises to implement green innovation. Meanwhile, green innovation, such as improving organizational, environmental and social performance, can also provide enterprises with resources or capabilities to obtain and utilize the strategic effects [88,103], as well as the competitive advantages [73,104]

In order to achieve the purpose of sustainable development, enterprises need to adjust the organizational development strategy according to the requirements of the external institutional. The implementation of green innovation in enterprises is to meet the requirements of the environmental institutional and the needs of consumers for green products. External institutional pressure not only puts forward requirements for the development of enterprises, but also provides opportunities. Therefore, institutional theory is also one of the theoretical perspectives favored by scholars when studying green innovation. In institutional theory, however, the formulation and implementation of enterprise green innovation strategy is driven by external institutions pressure. When there are external institutions isomorphic factors such as compulsoriness, normalization and imitativeness [65], the enterprise will adapt to different types of external institutions pressures by improving its legitimacy [44,64]. Therefore, mandatory policy factors such as environment inspections and environmental regulations [105,106] and uncertain market factors such as market competition and volatility [12,76] are two major kinds of factors that drive the green innovation practice of enterprises. In the process of implementing green innovation to improve organizational legitimacy, enterprises can also obtain better environment and green performance [22,72] and more strategic effects in terms of customer cooperation and customer capital [49,89]. It is clear that the logic of resource-based view and institutional theory is highly consistent in the study of the drivers and effects of green innovation.

It is worth noting that while stakeholder theory, natural-resource-based view, upper echelons theory, dynamic capabilities and social network theory are not the most commonly adopted theoretical perspectives in the study of the drivers and effects of green innovation, their theoretical logic has been consistently supported in the current research of green innovation. For example, in the light of stakeholder theory, stakeholder pressure will affect the strategic decision-making and practice of enterprises [78]. As stakeholders, such as the government, customers, etc., pay more and more attention to environmental issues, they put forward higher requirements for the performance of enterprises in terms of environment. Therefore, enterprises, under the pressure of stakeholders, will carry out green innovation activities [53], which improves environmental performance of the enterprises [72] and further enhance organizational legitimacy.

Besides, there are other theoretical perspectives which are complementary to the more commonly adopted resource-based view and institutional theory. For example, according to organizational learning theory, enterprises will absorb the knowledge and acquire the resources they need to carry out green innovation activities through learning. When there are new knowledge, new technologies and other resources needed for organizational development in the external environment, enterprises will try to gain these resource elements through learning [77] for the sake of sustainable development. Therefore, the absorptive capacity, green learning, and knowledge sharing are factors that drive the practice of green innovation in enterprises [10]. In the attention-based view, however, the threats or opportunities perceived from environmental inspections will affect attention allocation and decision-making. When senior managers regard environmental inspection as an opportunity, they will pay more attention to it and adopt a proactive green innovation strategy to seize the development opportunity [66]. Future research can further analyze the differences in green innovation strategies caused by different attention allocation of senior management.

4. Conclusions and Prospect

4.1. Conclusions and Discussion

This paper summarized the current literature on the drivers and effects of green innovation and attempted to put forward the prospect of future research. First of all, it summarized the drivers and effects of green innovation, revealing some consistent conclusions and divergence of views of current research and identifying new research opportunities; secondly, it reviewed the mechanisms of the drivers and effects of green innovation, proposing the potential optimization path of green innovation in the future; last but not least, this paper established the main theoretical mechanisms of the current research on the drivers and effects of green innovation, pointing out some consistency and imbalance of the logic of the theories. The main conclusions are as follows:

(1)

In terms of the drivers that drive enterprise green innovation, two key factors driving enterprises to carry out green innovation are internal organizational factors and external environmental factors. Internal organizational factors include strategic and cultural factors, resources and capabilities factors, characteristic factors of senior executives, stakeholders and other internal factors, which represents the support and power for enterprises to carry out green innovation. External environmental factors consist of policy environment, market environment and social environment, which provide enterprises with opportunities and requirements to carry out green innovation. The interaction of internal and external factors makes the green innovation of enterprises extremely urgent. Therefore, an accurate grasp of the characteristics and changing trends of the internal and external environment, which can make an enterprise more flexible in adjusting their development strategy, is also more conducive to the sustainable development of the enterprise.

(2)

From the perspective of the strategic effect of green innovation, the practice of green innovation has an internal impact on the overall performance, financial performance, non-financial performance (environmental and green performance) and the success of new products, and an external impact on competitive advantage, social performance, customer cooperation and customer capital. The strategic effect of enterprise green innovation not only depends on the green innovation practice and its achievements but is also closely related to the market environment and the characteristics of the enterprise itself. Therefore, when identifying market development opportunities, enterprises fully consider the characteristics of their own enterprises and formulate appropriate green innovation strategies, which may bring more strategic effects.

(3)

As of the mechanisms, the major moderating factors of the drivers and effects of green innovation include internal factors such as strategic and cultural factors, learning and organizational ability, manager behavior or characteristics and other internal factors, and external factors such as market factors, social factors, etc. The main mediating mechanisms of the drivers and effects of green innovation are learning factors, resource factors, ability factors, environment factors and other factors. The green innovation practice of enterprises is not only affected by internal factors such as organizational green strategic orientation, learning and absorptive capacity, internal resources, manager behavior and characteristics, but is also closely related to the complexity of the market, environmental inspections, and environmental law enforcement. Therefore, when formulating a green innovation strategy, enterprises should first have a clear understanding of some mechanisms of green innovation in theory, Secondly, by accurately grasping the specific requirements of the external system and fully analyzing green resources and capabilities owned by the enterprise, the enterprise can judge what elements are still lacking in the green innovation practice of the enterprise, and then pertinently obtain the lack of factors and carry out green innovation practice, and finally get more benefits from these factors.

(4)

As regards the theoretical mechanisms, resource-based view and institutional theory are two commonly adopted theoretical perspectives, and their theoretical logic obtains consistent support in explaining the drivers and effects of enterprise green innovation. It is worth noting that while stakeholder theory, natural-resource-based view, upper echelons theory, dynamic capabilities and social network theory are not the most commonly adopted theoretical perspectives in the study of the drivers and effects of green innovation, their theoretical logic has been consistently supported in the current research of green innovation. Other theoretical perspectives, such as organizational learning theory, are complementary to the more commonly used resource-based view and institutional theory. Therefore, when discussing green innovation from the main theoretical perspectives such as the resource-based view and institutional theory, if they can take into account other theoretical perspectives, they may be able to have a more comprehensive understanding of the process of green innovation and achieve theoretical innovation.

4.2. Prospect

Given the serious environment and climate issues facing the world today, green innovation has aroused global concern. While there has been a heated discussion on the drivers and effects of green innovation, little effective communication has been created among current research. Through the establishment, integration and review of the current research, this paper attempted to establish dialogue among findings of research on the drivers and effects of green innovation. This paper holds that there are two types of drivers for enterprises to carry out green innovation—environmental and organizational. The pressure from external environment and institutions drives enterprises to carry out green innovation practice to cater to isomorphic factors, and, at the same time, they can obtain better environmental performance and improve their organizational legitimacy. Factors such as sustainable development strategy and stakeholder pressure within the organization drive enterprises to carry out green innovation practice and expand their competitive advantage by learning and absorbing external new knowledge, new technology, etc.

Future research should take into consideration the specific situational factors and be conducted from an overall perspective, with a view to deeply analyze the drivers and effects of green innovation, breaking through the current research boundaries, and making theoretical progress. Specifically, such a prospect is threefold. Firstly, future research on the drivers of green innovation should further probe into the cross influence of internal and external factors, the results of which should be verified through in-depth case studies in which specific situational factors are taken into consideration. Secondly, in future research on the effects of green innovation, the heterogeneity of industry, nature, development stage, scale, senior management, and other aspects should be compared and contrasted, so as to put forward the specific context and path of the strategic effects of enterprise green innovation. Thirdly, in terms of the mechanisms, more theoretical perspectives should be adopted to verify research hypotheses. Researchers should compare the differences between research findings and further explore the optimization path for enterprises to carry out green innovation.