Can the construction of a research and development platform encourage innovation in green technology by private enterprises? Evidence from China

Abstract The establishment of a research and development (R&D) platform can be used to effectively accumulate and optimize innovation resources and increase the willingness of enterprises to pursue innovations in green technology. Therefore, we used survey data from more than 1100 private enterprises in China as samples and constructed a multidimensional mediation model to test the relationship between enterprise R&D platforms and green‐technology innovation and, further, to reveal the mechanisms underlying the impact of government subsidies, social financing, and enterprise R&D investment on these relationships. Our findings were as follows. (1) The establishment of a R&D platform can encourage the adoption of green‐technology innovation strategies by enterprises, and the latter are dependent on the types of R&D platform and green‐technology innovation applied. (2) The setting up of R&D platforms can optimize capital by increasing R&D investment, earning government subsidies, improving social financing, and encouraging innovation in green technology. (3) The pathways used to develop R&D platforms to encourage green‐technology innovation can be either direct or indirect, and they are similar. (4) Enterprises' self‐built platforms and cooperative‐sharing platforms can encourage green‐process innovation by increasing R&D investment and earning government subsidies. Moreover, national‐level, provincial‐level, self‐built, and cooperative‐sharing R&D platforms all encourage green‐product innovation by increasing R&D investment and earning government subsidies. However, only provincial‐level R&D platforms can encourage green‐technology innovation, including green‐product innovation and green‐process innovation, by earning social financing.