Yulong Liu

The digital economy is an important engine in leading the high-quality development of the economy, and entrepreneurship is an endogenous force propelling economic growth. These factors are essential drivers for advancing the transformation and upgrading of the construction industry and improving efficiency. This study integrates entrepreneurship into the analytical framework of industrial development and explores the primary pathways and theoretical mechanisms of the digital economy for the high-quality development of the construction industry from the dimensions of entrepreneurial innovation spirit and entrepreneurial pioneering spirit. On this basis, we empirically test the role mechanism between the digital economy, entrepreneurship, and the high-quality development of the construction industry. The results of this study indicate that (1) the digital economy significantly promotes the high-quality development of the construction industry through an improvement in technical efficiency; (2) the innovation and entrepreneurship of entrepreneurs are important mechanisms for the digital economy to promote the high-quality development of the construction industry, and at this stage, entrepreneurial spirit promotes more than the spirit of innovation; and (3) the development of the digital economy plays a greater role in enhancing low-productivity regions and the central and eastern regions, and the inclusive characteristics of the digital economy are beginning to emerge.

Against the backdrop of increasing global environmental pollution and energy consumption, green innovation is necessary to achieve green transformation. As an industry with a huge demand for resources and energy consumption, the construction industry shoulders the mission of the times to promote green innovation to enhance the ability of sustainable development. Digital technology provides new opportunities for green innovation in the construction industry. However, the impacts and mechanisms of digital transformation driving green innovation have not been thoroughly studied. In this paper, 121 listed companies in China’s construction industry are selected as a sample from 2011 to 2021, and a total of 1331 annual observations are obtained, and the impact and mechanism of digital transformation on construction enterprises’ green innovation are empirically analyzed by establishing regression models. The study indicates that digital transformation can facilitate green innovation in construction companies by enhancing corporate risk-taking and improving corporate governance. Compared with non-state-owned enterprises, state-owned enterprises have more endogenous incentives for green transformation based on multiple pressures, which to some extent weakens the driving role of digital transformation. The driving effect of enterprises’ digital transformation is more significant when the intensity of regional environmental regulation is high. This paper examines how the digitization of construction enterprises can lead to new greening ideas from the perspective of green innovation. It provides an important theoretical basis and decision-making reference to support the construction industry in its digital transformation and realize the goal of “dual carbon”.