Research on the multiple promotion paths of green innovation performance in Chinese high-end equipment manufacturing enterprises: A configuration study based on TOE framework

With the increasing global environmental awareness and the tightening of regulations, high-end equipment manufacturing enterprises are facing a significant test of green innovation. Challenges such as core technologies, funding, and talent continue to impede the green innovation of enterprises. This study investigates how high-end equipment manufacturers can configure their technological, organizational and environmental (TOE) conditions to attain high green-innovation performance, adopting a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) lens that recognizes equifinality and causal asymmetry. The research reveals that none of single factors is necessary for high green innovation performance, indicating that enterprises need to focus on the synergistic effects and overall impact of multiple conditions in green innovation. The interaction and matching of conditions generate configuration effects, providing diverse paths for enterprises to enhance green innovation performance. Through the horizontal comparison of various configurations, it is evident that “high strategic flexibility” emerges as a crucial core condition, suggesting that enterprises should emphasize the flexibility of resource allocation and organizational coordination to better adapt to environmental changes.