Jiamin Sun

Intelligent transformation has become a key driver of enterprise development. It enables firms to improve operational efficiency, enhance innovation capabilities, and maintain long-term competitiveness. This study investigates the impact of environmental performance on the intelligent transformation of manufacturing firms in China. It uses the panel data from A-share listed manufacturing companies covering the period from 2010 to 2023. Environmental performance is measured using the environmental sub-score from the CNRDS ESG rating system. The analysis investigates both the direct impact of environmental performance on firms’ intelligent upgrading and the mediating effects of external market environments, including product market, policy environment, and capital market. The empirical findings reveal that higher environmental performance significantly enhances the level of intelligent transformation, highlighting its increasingly key role in promoting technological progress and smart development in the manufacturing sector. This study contributes to the theoretical integration of environmental governance and digital transformation, offering practical implications for manufacturing firms seeking to align sustainability with innovation strategies under China’s dual transformation framework.

Digital transformation is increasingly recognized as a key mechanism for enterprise upgrading, facilitating innovation, enhancing resource efficiency, and sustaining competitive advantage. This study investigates the influence of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance on the digital transformation of China’s new energy enterprises. Drawing on panel data from A-share listed firms from 2010 to 2023, the analysis assesses both the direct effect of ESG performance and the mediating role of dynamic capabilities, including absorptive, adaptive, and innovative capacities. The empirical results yield three key findings. First, superior ESG performance significantly advances digital transformation by expanding firms’ resource bases and supporting technological renewal. Second, the effect is more pronounced in mature firms and regions with supportive institutional environments and attenuated in early-stage or resource-constrained contexts. Third, the mediation analysis confirms that ESG fosters transformation by strengthening dynamic capabilities. These findings underscore the strategic role of ESG in enabling digital transformation and offer theoretical and practical insights for firms pursuing sustainability-oriented transformation.

The institutional environment is critical to economic growth. A favorable business environment can reduce unnecessary transaction costs. This study examined the impact of institutional friction costs on economic growth, based on panel data for 38 OECD countries from 2004 to 2020. The contribution of this paper is that, first, we explore methods to measure the cost of institutional friction, and the measurements show that the total cost of institutional friction tends to be lower in high-income countries than in upper-middle-income countries. Second, we find that reducing the cost of institutional friction helps to promote economic growth through an empirical fixed-effects analysis approach with panel data. The empirical results remain significant after robustness and endogeneity tests. Third, we find that the effect of institutional friction costs on economic growth is more pronounced in high-income countries and even more pronounced in countries with inefficient governments. Fourth, the mediation effect test finds that institutional friction costs affect economic growth by increasing firm innovation. Overall, reducing the costs of institutional friction helps promote economic growth, and this study suggests that policy makers in each country should develop measures to reduce the costs of institutional friction to improve efficiency and economic development.