Data Elements for Corporate Sustainability: How Data Fosters Substantive Green Innovation and Shapes Symbolic Green Behavior—The Heterogenous Mediating Mechanism of Absorptive Capacity

Driven by global carbon-neutrality targets and corporate sustainability imperatives, data elements have evolved into a core new engine propelling corporate green innovation and long-term sustainability transitions. Using panel data of A-share listed firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges spanning 2006 to 2023, this study systematically explores the disparate impacts of data elements on substantive green innovation and symbolic green innovation, two pivotal strategic pathways toward corporate sustainability. The empirical results demonstrate that data elements significantly promote both types of green innovation on average, yet the enabling effect for substantive green innovation is weakened and may reverse under high-stringency environmental regulation. Data elements significantly promote both types of green innovation, with a more salient incentive effect on substantive green innovation that delivers tangible sustainability performance improvements. Mechanism tests reveal that data elements facilitate substantive green innovation by elevating firms’ realized absorptive capacity, while symbolic green innovation is primarily stimulated through the advancement of potential absorptive capacity. In terms of moderating effects, environmental regulations weaken the positive association between data elements and substantive green innovation but strengthen the enabling effect of data elements on symbolic green innovation. Conversely, directors’ and officers’ (D&O) liability insurance positively reinforces the nexus between data elements and substantive green innovation, yet exerts no statistically significant moderating influence on symbolic green innovation. Heterogeneity analysis further suggests that the green-innovation-enabling effect of data elements is more prominent among high-tech enterprises, firms with low organizational agility, and industries featuring weak market competition. This research unpacks the asymmetric enabling mechanism of data elements for corporate sustainability-oriented green innovation and establishes an integrated theoretical framework encompassing “capacity transmission paths, institutional moderating contingencies and contextual boundaries”, which delivers an innovative analytical perspective for studies concerning data-driven sustainability governance and the value realization of data elements.