The impact of digital leadership on green innovation in ceramic enterprises

Green innovation is the core pathway for ceramic enterprises to overcome the challenge of high energy consumption and achieve sustainable development. As an emerging leadership mode in the digital economy age, the driving effect of digital leadership on green innovation in ceramic enterprises deserves in-depth investigation. Drawing on the upper echelon theory and organizational identity theory, this research adopts 265 questionnaires completed by middle and senior managers from 12 Chinese listed ceramic enterprises as the research sample. By adopting a mixed research method that integrates SEM and fsQCA, this study systematically explores the influence mechanisms, boundary conditions and various implementation paths of digital leadership on green innovation in the ceramic industry. The findings derived from the structural equation modeling analysis demonstrate that digital leadership and its three dimensions—digital strategic thinking, digital detection ability, and digital social ability—all have a significant positive influence. Acquisition of green knowledge and digital technology application play dual partial mediating roles, with the total mediating effect accounting for 54.3%. Top management innovativeness, environmental regulation intensity, and green organizational identity all exert significant positive moderating effects. FsQCA identified three high-level equivalent pathways for green innovation, among which the ‘dual-technology synergy type’ pathway exhibits the strongest explanatory power. The study reveals a linear mechanism and multi-configurational pathways involving the direct effects through which digital leadership exerts an influence on green innovation within ceramic enterprises, combined with dual mediation and three moderating effects. These findings expand the scope of applying digital leadership within energy-intensive industries and provides theoretical support and practical guidance for the green transformation of ceramic enterprises.