Will Cooperation Boost Green Innovation? Evidence From the Green Alliances of China's Listed Companies

ABSTRACT

We examine how green alliances among Chinese listed firms affect firms' green innovation. By manually reading firms' annual reports, we identify whether firms participate in green alliances and construct the key explanatory variable. We find that participation in green alliances offsets the dual externalities of green innovation through knowledge sharing, alleviates uncertainty costs through risk sharing, and attracts green investors by releasing positive environmental signals, thereby easing financing constraints and ultimately enhancing firms' incentives for green innovation. Further analysis based on alliance partners and types shows that, compared with government–enterprise and industry–academia–research alliances, financial support–based and interfirm alliances have stronger effects on green innovation. Moreover, equity‐based and long‐term alliances, which feature more stable alliance relationships, are more conducive to green innovation than contractual and short‐term alliances.