Leveraging data assets to promote enterprise green innovation: A dual perspective of dynamic capabilities and information asymmetry

Green innovation is crucial for socio-economic sustainable development. In the current wave of the digital economy, data assets have become a key production factor for enterprise high-quality development. Under these circumstances, this study uses data on 3729 A-share-listed firms of China from 2013 to 2023 to examine the direct effect of data assets on enterprise green innovation and investigate mechanisms grounded in the theory of dynamic capabilities and information asymmetry. The results demonstrate that data assets application significantly promotes the quality and quantity of enterprises’ green innovation, and the robustness test results support this finding. In terms of mechanisms, the dual paths of internal capabilities enhancement and external information collaboration reveal the mediating roles of knowledge absorptive capacity, ESG governance capacity, and analyst attention. Additionally, a heterogeneity analysis indicates that the promoting effect of data assets on green innovation is more pronounced in the enterprises of state-owned, technology-intensive industries, non-heavy-polluting industries, and high market competition industries. These findings advance the data assets and green innovation literature, and offer valuable guidance for enterprise managers and policymakers to optimize green innovation strategies for high-quality development.