Environmental regulation and enterprise green innovation: a dual heterogeneity perspective

Based on institutional theory, environmental regulation (ER) is considered the primary factor in stimulating green innovation (GI) in enterprises. The existing literature has extensively explored the ER-GI relationship, but conclusions are still inconsistent, which is related to neglecting the dual heterogeneity in this relationship. Hence, we divide ER into command ER (CER) and incentive ER (MER), and GI into compliant GI (CGI) and strategic GI (SGI) to address this research gap. Employing a questionnaire survey of Chinese manufacturing enterprises, we re-examined the ER-GI relationship and tried to identify the moderating effect of environmental ethics (EE). The results show that CER and MER positively affect CGI and SGI. Furthermore, under the CER, there is increased accessibility to adopting CGI. Under the MER, the likelihood of choosing SGI is higher. Moreover, we find that heterogeneous ERs are more conducive to SGI under the moderating effect of EE. This study has significantly contributed to the literature on the ER-GI relationship.