2.1. Baseline Hypothesis
The digital empowerment theory points out that in the process of
DTE, based on information and communication technology, data elements and digital technologies are used to endow behaviors such as innovation resource allocation with digital characteristics, connectivity, intelligence, and analysis capabilities, and strengthen the collection, mining, and sharing capabilities of enterprise innovation resources [
16,
17]. According to the theory of green innovation, there are some problems in its implementation, such as high risk and long profit period, and then it faces the problems of insufficient innovation will of the innovation subject and difficulty in cooperation [
18]. The realization of
DTE can strengthen the digital capability [
19], which is conducive to the analysis and utilization of green innovation resources of enterprises or the sharing with other innovation entities, thus accelerating the improvement of
ERGI. Specifically, as an important factor of production in the digital era, data contain a lot of important information, which has an important impact on whether enterprises can grasp the green market dynamics, understand competitors, meet consumer needs, and, thus, gain opportunities. This also places a great test on the digital acquisition of enterprises. The strong digital acquisition capability of enterprises is not only conducive to obtaining more information [
20], but also has a positive effect on the docking of various links of regional green innovation [
21]. However, it is worth noting that, compared with traditional innovation, green innovation has greater risks and serious asymmetry of information resources. In the context of rapid digital development and enterprise digital transformation, although the digital information acquisition ability of enterprises has been strengthened, massive data resources make it difficult for enterprises to distinguish between true and false in the process of use. Therefore, enterprises should have the ability to effectively analyze and use a large number of data resources, screen valuable information in the data resources [
22], promote enterprises to make breakthroughs in green innovation, help eliminate the concerns of enterprises when exchanging information with other innovation entities, and promote all kinds of innovation entities to jointly improve the
ERGI. In addition, the
DTE also facilitates the sharing of resources. In the process of
DTE, enterprises use digital information technology to improve their own digital sharing ability, realize the intelligent matching between the supply side and the demand side, and then promote the exchange of information among regional innovation subjects. The complexity of the implementation process of green innovation determines the importance of green innovation cooperation, and enterprise digital sharing ability provides opportunities and convenience for green innovation cooperation [
23,
24,
25]. Based on this, we believe that digital capability is a key dimension for
DTE to promote the improvement of
ERGI. Enterprise digital ability is considered to involve the use of modern digital technology to optimize processes, improve customer experience, and provide a new business model, with the ability to solve business problems [
26,
27], including digital acquisition, utilization, and sharing capability.
Enterprise digital acquisition capability is the ability to acquire digital resources. As the core subject of regional green innovation system, enterprises are the main organizers and participants of scientific and technological innovation activities [
28]. Enterprises have high data collection capabilities, which are conducive to enriching the knowledge base of green innovation and strengthening the communication between enterprises and enterprises and other innovation entities, and have a positive impact on the
ERGI. First, enterprises have higher digital acquisition capabilities, which is conducive to obtaining more information needed for business operations [
20], increasing opportunities for cooperation and communication, and providing support for enterprises to obtain more new technologies and information. Second, enterprises should improve their digital acquisition capability, expand the method of collecting green innovation knowledge, enrich the knowledge base of regional green innovation [
29], and provide more intellectual support for
ERGI. Third, the content of green innovation is diverse, including multiple links. By enhancing digital collection capabilities, companies can efficiently deploy innovation resources to provide connectivity across manufacturing processes [
21], thereby increasing
ERGI. Moreover, the collected massive multidimensional high-frequency data also create conditions for the subsequent correlation analysis and in-depth mining of enterprises, thus forming an innovation model in terms of industrial resource organization, knowledge inheritance and diffusion, and providing a foundation for improving the
ERGI.
Enterprise digital utilization capability refers to the ability of enterprises to analyze and sort out the acquired digital resources, remove redundant resources, screen data resources, and develop and utilize them. Strengthening the digital utilization capability of enterprises is conducive to mining valuable information from massive data, effectively coping with unpredictable changing environments [
22], and improving the use of digital information and
ERGI. In the digital era, enterprises are faced with massive data, but there are redundant and repetitive data resources, which is a double-edged sword for the improvement of
ERGI. Compared with traditional innovation, green innovation faces higher costs, and this dilemma will be further amplified if the high-quality resources of green innovation cannot be efficiently identified. Strengthening enterprise digital analysis and utilization capabilities is conducive to integrating internal resources, forming key shared knowledge, identifying high-quality resources from massive data, improving resource exchange frequency, reducing costs [
6], and, thus, improving
ERGI. In the meantime, the improvement of enterprise digital utilization capability is conducive to enterprises’ greater data mining space, deeper mining and use of data information, alleviating information asymmetry, rational use of resources [
14], and promoting the exchange of innovative ideas between enterprises and other innovation subjects, so as to improve the
ERGI.
Enterprise digital sharing capability is regarded as the ability of enterprises to share data resources with each other. Digital sharing ability affects the value co-creation between enterprises and other innovation entities. Improving enterprise digital sharing capability is conducive to promoting regional information sharing, strengthening the efficiency of innovation resource transfer and exchange, and it has a positive impact on
ERGI. First, strengthening digital sharing capabilities can promote the transmission and exchange of resources and environment-related information within enterprises, improve the efficiency of green innovation information transmission and knowledge accumulation, expand the research and development path of green products, reduce research and development and operating costs, and encourage enterprises to participate in green innovation activities [
30]. Second, the complexity of green innovation makes cooperation more important. Enterprises improve their digital sharing capabilities, which is conducive to information sharing [
23], enhancing the familiarity of the green innovation collaboration process, and increasing the possibility of successful cooperation in regional green innovation. Third, digital sharing is conducive to enterprises obtaining external resources, accelerating the acquisition and absorption of heterogeneous knowledge, improving the accuracy of knowledge [
24,
25], promoting the flow of green innovation knowledge and new technologies, expanding the spillover effect of green innovation knowledge, and improving the
ERGI.
In addition, the theory of green innovation holds that the study of green innovation should also take into account the actual situation of regional development [
31]. From the perspective of regional development and civilization level, when the regional civilization level is improved, the regional green development awareness may be enhanced, which is more conducive to the improvement of the
ERGI by enterprise digital capability. Urbanization rate refers to the proportion of urban population in the total population, which is often used to measure the level of regional economic development and civilization [
32], and is also one of the important factors affecting green innovation. However, it is worth noting that although the improvement of regional civilization level is conducive to deepening the awareness of regional green development, with the increase of regional urbanization rate, a large number of residents flock to cities, which may lead to environmental pollution and emission increase, thus slowing down the improvement of
ERGI. To sum up, although the specific impact of urbanization rate on
ERGI cannot be determined, this factor still needs to be considered under the theme of this study. Similarly, the level of economic development cannot be ignored when studying the impact of enterprise digital capability on
ERGI [
33]. Regional economic development often determines the local innovation environment and the level of innovation infrastructure construction. This is also one of the factors that must be considered when exploring the relationship between an enterprise digital capability and the
ERGI on a regional scale. From the perspective of regional industrial structure, optimizing industrial structure can improve the independent innovation ability of enterprises [
34]. As a special form of innovation, green innovation is also affected by the industrial structure. It can be seen that the industrial structure is also one of the factors to be considered in this study. From the perspective of regional residents’ quality of life, it mainly includes residents’ consumption level and unemployment rate. When the consumption level of residents increases, to a certain extent, it means that residents’ requirements for quality of life are improved, regional green environmental awareness is enhanced, green product purchase behavior is generated [
35,
36], and enterprises are forced to strengthen the role of digital capability in
ERGI. Unemployment represents social sustainability [
37]. When the unemployment rate rises, it will not only reduce the desire of consumers to buy green products, but will also lead to the low willingness of enterprises to invest in green products. At the same time, the local strategic planning will also change, and with a higher unemployment rate, the local government may face pressure to urgently solve the employment problem, and then promote the development of some high-energy industries, which is not conducive to the digital ability of enterprises to promote the
ERGI. Therefore, in this study, the consumption level and unemployment rate of residents should also be included.
Based on the above analysis and considering the regional urbanization rate, economic development level, industrial structure, consumer consumption level, and unemployment rate, the following hypothesis is proposed:
In summary, the hypotheses are as follows:
H1: DTE can positively affect ERGI.
H1a: Enterprise digital acquisition capability can positively affect ERGI.
H1b: Enterprise digital utilization capability can positively affect ERGI.
H1c: Enterprise digital sharing capability can positively affect ERGI.
2.2. Mediating Effect Hypothesis
The improvement of enterprise digital capabilities means that enterprises rely on information technology such as big data to achieve cross-regional and cross-sectoral multi-integration. Digital technologies such as algorithms (digital twins, etc.), computing power (core chips, etc.), or data (Internet of Things and data perception) enable manufacturing, marketing, organizational models, product services, etc. By improving digital acquisition capabilities, the total amount of enterprise information resources is increased [
29], which provides a basis for rational planning of green innovation and allocation of innovative resources. The improvement of enterprise digital utilization capability is conducive to enterprises’ better use of artificial intelligence, blockchain analysis and big data technology, deeper mining of the hidden laws in massive data, improving the availability of information resources, and then helping enterprises to make the best production and sales decisions under the premise of complying with environmental laws, minimizing the negative impact on the environment and improving the
ERGI. By improving the digital sharing ability, enterprises can fully realize the sharing of information resources, expand the regional resource sharing pool, accelerate the dissemination, transformation, absorption, and utilization of information resources, connect enterprises with partners [
38], and improve the quality of access to green innovation information resources. To sum up, we point out the following hypotheses:
H2: DTE indirectly improves ERGI by increasing information resources.
H2a: Enterprise digital acquisition capability indirectly improves ERGI by increasing information resources.
H2b: Enterprises digital utilization capability indirectly improves ERGI by increasing information resources.
H2c: Enterprise digital sharing capability indirectly improves ERGI by increasing information resources.
Knowledge resources represent the amount of knowledge owned by enterprises. The improvement of digital acquisition capability of enterprises is conducive to improving the efficiency of data information collection by enterprises for users, collaborators, competitors in the same industry, etc. [
39], timely understanding of market frontier information, enriching their own green innovation knowledge database, and helping to clarify their own development pain points, combined with their own situation, and formulate targeted measures to improve the level of knowledge resources. Enterprise digital utilization capability enhancement promotes the development of resources and knowledge integration. By analyzing the available knowledge information contained in massive data, it is helpful to understand the internal knowledge, quickly identify and integrate external knowledge, clearly grasp the mainstream technology, new ideas, and development trends of green innovation [
40], and provide comprehensive and diversified knowledge resources for regional green innovation development. Enterprise digital sharing capabilities are enhanced to facilitate the sharing of heterogeneous knowledge resources with other green innovation participants. Thus, regions can obtain different and scarce green innovation knowledge resources, accelerate the conversion of tacit knowledge into usable knowledge resources, improve the knowledge spillover effect [
24], and strengthen
ERGI. On this basis, we propose the following hypotheses:
H3: DTE indirectly improves ERGI by increasing knowledge resources.
H3a: Enterprise digital acquisition capability indirectly improves ERGI by increasing knowledge resources.
H3b: Enterprise digital utilization capability indirectly improves ERGI by increasing knowledge resources.
H3c: Enterprise digital sharing capability indirectly improves ERGI by increasing knowledge resources.
Capital investment is the foundation of enterprise research and development. Green innovation, as a special form of innovation, has the characteristics of high investment, long return period, and high risk [
41], and often lacks sufficient R&D funds. R&D funds investment is very critical to improving the
ERGI. The strengthening of digital capabilities of enterprises is conducive to bringing more R&D funds to improve
ERGI by identifying business opportunities and obtaining more investment funds. Specifically, the digital acquisition capability of enterprises can enhance the function of information collection, become the leader of digital innovation [
13], discover the business opportunities of green products and services, achieve service value addition, improve user satisfaction, expand the scope of services, attract more investors to invest in regional green innovation, and provide financial guarantee for the development of regional green innovation. Through strong digital utilization capabilities, enterprises can realize data information mining and utilization, understand customer needs, make timely and accurate decisions [
14,
42,
43], reduce operating costs, provide diversified production methods to promote enterprises to obtain new customers, increase value increment, and have more funds to invest in R&D links [
44,
45]. Similarly, enterprise digital sharing can also reduce transaction costs and marginal costs of services, improve the utilization rate of R&D funds [
46], meet the changing market demand of consumers, expand market scale, enhance the value of innovation subjects, and use more funds for innovation R&D investment. Accordingly, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H4: DTE indirectly improves ERGI by increasing R&D funds.
H4a: Enterprise digital acquisition capability indirectly improves ERGI by increasing R&D funds.
H4b: Enterprise digital utilization capability indirectly improves ERGI by increasing R&D funds.
H4c: Enterprise digital sharing capability indirectly improves ERGI by increasing R&D funds.
Whether it is
DTE or the improvement of
ERGI, high-quality human capital is needed. Improving the quality of regional human capital is conducive to providing new ideas and new plans for regional green innovation [
47,
48], and thus enhancing
ERGI. Specifically, the improvement of digital acquisition capability enables enterprises to understand the regional talent market more comprehensively, realize electronic human resource management [
49], and realize the allocation efficiency of human resources more scientifically and reasonably. The improvement of digital utilization capability reduces the cost of human resources and information search, provides a platform for the exchange of talent information, ideas, and views within the innovation subject, stimulates the potential of talent, and improves the quality and ability of the original talent. The enhancement of enterprise digital sharing capability promotes the construction of regional talent information-sharing networks. Enterprises can not only share talent training plans and platforms, but also realize digital management of business process through data information resource sharing, clarifying the talent input demand of each link, and absorbing high-level talents [
47]. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H5: DTE indirectly improves ERGI by improving human resources.
H5a: Enterprise digital acquisition capability indirectly improves ERGI by improving human resources.
H5b: Enterprise digital utilization capability indirectly improves ERGI by improving human resources.
H5c: Enterprise digital sharing capability indirectly improves ERGI by improving human resources.
To sum up, a theoretical model of the impact mechanism of
DTE on
ERGI is proposed, as shown in
Figure 1.