Digital platform capability, environmental innovation quality, and firms’ competitive advantage: The moderating role of environmental uncertainty

In the context of the "Internet plus" era, exploring whether digital platforms can enhance firms' competitive advantage, and the internal mechanism of this potential relationship, is of great significance. Based on the theory of dynamic capabilities, this study examines the impact of digital platform's capability on firms' competitive advantage, as well as the mediating effect of environmental innovation quality and the moderating effect of environmental uncertainty. We selected 242 firms in the Chinese manufacturing industry as the sample and tested the model using multiple regression methods. The results show that digital platform capability has a significant positive impact on firms' competitive advantage, environmental innovation quality plays a partial mediating role between digital platform capability and firms' competitive advantage, and the effect of digital platform capability on firms' environmental innovation quality is negatively moderated by environmental uncertainty. The research reveals the mechanism of interaction between digital platform capability and competitive advantage, which can aid firms in building digital platforms, and improve the quality of their environmental innovation and their competitive advantage.