IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v16y2024i5p2217-d1352512.html

Patent Protection Policy and Firms’ Green Technology Innovation: Mediating Roles of Open Innovation and Human Capital

Author

Listed:
  • Dong Chen

    (School of Economics, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 611130, China)

  • Shi Chen

    (School of Economics, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 611130, China)

Abstract

Green innovations such as renewable energy technologies and cleaner process modifications are important technical routes and critical directions for reducing carbon emissions from industrial production processes. This study examines the impact of intellectual property protection on green technology innovation, constructing a progressive difference-in-differences model using 849 listed manufacturing firms panel data from 2007 to 2019 and taking the Chinese Intellectual Property Rights model cities as a quasi-natural experiment. Our study finds that the pilot policy significantly enhances corporate green innovation. When considering heterogeneity, the policy treatment effect is more remarkable for large firms, state-owned enterprises, and industries where technology can be easily imitated. Moreover, the mediating effect shows that the policy promotes green innovation by encouraging firms’ research and development cooperation and increasing human capital levels. This study proposes that policymakers should reinforce intellectual property protection, encourage companies to be better and bigger, and emphasize the intermediary function of open innovation and human capital in green technology innovation.

Suggested Citation

  • Dong Chen & Shi Chen, 2024. "Patent Protection Policy and Firms’ Green Technology Innovation: Mediating Roles of Open Innovation and Human Capital," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-17, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:5:p:2217-:d:1352512
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/5/2217/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/5/2217/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Petra Moser, 2005. "How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World's Fairs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1214-1236, September.
    2. L. Kamran Bilir, 2014. "Patent Laws, Product Life-Cycle Lengths, and Multinational Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(7), pages 1979-2013, July.
    3. Jacobson, Louis S & LaLonde, Robert J & Sullivan, Daniel G, 1993. "Earnings Losses of Displaced Workers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 685-709, September.
    4. Du, Kerui & Cheng, Yuanyuan & Yao, Xin, 2021. "Environmental regulation, green technology innovation, and industrial structure upgrading: The road to the green transformation of Chinese cities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    5. Barbieri, Nicolò & Marzucchi, Alberto & Rizzo, Ugo, 2020. "Knowledge sources and impacts on subsequent inventions: Do green technologies differ from non-green ones?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(2).
    6. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change: An Empirical Exploration," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1279-1333.
    7. Minyuan Zhao, 2006. "Conducting R& D in Countries with Weak Intellectual Property Rights Protection," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(8), pages 1185-1199, August.
    8. James S. Ang & Yingmei Cheng & Chaopeng Wu, 2014. "Does Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Matter in China? Evidence from Financing and Investment Choices in the High-Tech Industry," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(2), pages 332-348, May.
    9. Rennings, Klaus, 2000. "Redefining innovation -- eco-innovation research and the contribution from ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 319-332, February.
    10. Hu, Albert Guangzhou & Jefferson, Gary H., 2009. "A great wall of patents: What is behind China's recent patent explosion?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 57-68, September.
    11. Eiadat, Yousef & Kelly, Aidan & Roche, Frank & Eyadat, Hussein, 2008. "Green and competitive? An empirical test of the mediating role of environmental innovation strategy," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 131-145, March.
    12. Zhang, Cheng & Zhou, Bo & Tian, Xuan, 2022. "Political connections and green innovation: The role of a corporate entrepreneurship strategy in state-owned enterprises," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 375-384.
    13. Eduardo Melero & Neus Palomeras & David Wehrheim, 2020. "The Effect of Patent Protection on Inventor Mobility," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(12), pages 5485-5504, December.
    14. Fang Yang & Xu Li, 2023. "Corporate Financialization, ESG Performance and Sustainability Development: Evidence from Chinese-Listed Companies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-28, February.
    15. Yihao Cao & Ehsan Elahi & Zainab Khalid & Ping Li & Pengsheng Sun, 2023. "How Do Intellectual Property Rights Affect Green Technological Innovation? Empirical Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-17, May.
    16. Arora, Ashish & Athreye, Suma & Huang, Can, 2016. "The paradox of openness revisited: Collaborative innovation and patenting by UK innovators," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(7), pages 1352-1361.
    17. Naghavi, Alireza & Strozzi, Chiara, 2015. "Intellectual property rights, diasporas, and domestic innovation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 150-161.
    18. Lee G. Branstetter & Raymond Fisman & C. Fritz Foley, 2006. "Do Stronger Intellectual Property Rights Increase International Technology Transfer? Empirical Evidence from U. S. Firm-Level Panel Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(1), pages 321-349.
    19. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The skill content of recent technological change: an empirical exploration," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue nov.
    20. Donis, Silvia & Gómez, Jaime & Salazar, Idana, 2023. "Economic complexity, property rights and the judicial system as drivers of eco-innovations: An analysis of OECD countries," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    21. Tang, Chang & Xu, Yuanyuan & Hao, Yu & Wu, Haitao & Xue, Yan, 2021. "What is the role of telecommunications infrastructure construction in green technology innovation? A firm-level analysis for China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    22. Horbach, Jens, 2008. "Determinants of environmental innovation--New evidence from German panel data sources," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 163-173, February.
    23. Li, Zhenghui & Huang, Zimei & Su, Yaya, 2023. "New media environment, environmental regulation and corporate green technology innovation:Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    24. Sayantan Khanra & Puneet Kaur & Rojers P Joseph & Ashish Malik & Amandeep Dhir, 2022. "A resource‐based view of green innovation as a strategic firm resource: Present status and future directions," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 1395-1413, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aili Zhang & Yajie Xu, 2025. "Intellectual Property Protection and Enterprise Green Technology Innovation: Evidence from Manufacturing Industries in China," Advances in Management and Applied Economics, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 15(5), pages 1-7.
    2. Jing Xiao & Yan Zhou & Ping Zeng, 2024. "How does green strategy orientation promote substantive green innovation? Evidence from Chinese manufacturing enterprises," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 57(6), pages 1-31, December.
    3. Mei Han & Guoliang Feng & Xinyue Liu, 2025. "Optimizing Nonspatial Proximity to Increase Green Technological Innovation in Manufacturing," SAGE Open, , vol. 15(4), pages 21582440251, November.
    4. Galyna Malynovska & Jan Pawlik & Galyna Kis & Radosław Wolniak & Sviatoslav Kis & Oleh Yatsiuk & Michał Bembenek, 2025. "Methodology and Practical Test of Human Capital Assessment of Ukrainian Oil and Gas Enterprises in the Context of Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(6), pages 1-23, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhongju Liao & Yuhan Wu, 2025. "Formal institutions, informal institutions, and firms' environmental innovation: An application of the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis method," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(1), pages 668-680, February.
    2. Pereira, Vijay & Nair, Asha KS. & Bhattacharyya, Som Sekhar, 2025. "Exploring and investigating the complementarity and multidimensionality of innovation for sustainability research: Past present and future," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    3. Gianluca Orsatti & François Perruchas & Davide Consoli & Francesco Quatraro, 2020. "Public Procurement, Local Labor Markets and Green Technological Change. Evidence from US Commuting Zones," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 75(4), pages 711-739, April.
    4. Qi, Xiulin & Wu, Zhifang & Xu, Jinqing & Shan, Biaoan, 2023. "Environmental justice and green innovation: A quasi-natural experiment based on the establishment of environmental courts in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    5. Tang, Chang & Xu, Yuanyuan & Hao, Yu & Wu, Haitao & Xue, Yan, 2021. "What is the role of telecommunications infrastructure construction in green technology innovation? A firm-level analysis for China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    6. Kamal Saggi, 2016. "Trade, Intellectual Property Rights, and the World Trade Organization," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 16-00014, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    7. Shuang Meng & Pengxiang Wang & Jiajie Yu, 2022. "Going Abroad and Going Green: The Effects of Top Management Teams’ Overseas Experience on Green Innovation in the Digital Era," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(22), pages 1-20, November.
    8. Amelia U. Santos-Paulino & Mariagrazia Squicciarini & Peilei Fan, 2008. "R&D (Re)location: A Bird's Eye (Re)view," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2008-100, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. Feng, Yuan & Chen, Zhi & Nie, Changfei, 2023. "The effect of broadband infrastructure construction on urban green innovation: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 581-598.
    10. lv, Kangjuan & Pan, Minjie & Huang, Li & Song, Daqiang & Qian, Xinlei, 2023. "Can intellectual property rights protection reduce air pollution? A quasi-natural experiment from China," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 210-222.
    11. Ying Zhang & Yingli Huang, 2023. "Killing Two Birds with One Stone or Missing One of Them? The Synergistic Governance Effect of China’s Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme on Pollution Control and Carbon Emission Reduction," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-25, June.
    12. Durán-Romero, Gemma & López, Ana M. & Beliaeva, Tatiana & Ferasso, Marcos & Garonne, Christophe & Jones, Paul, 2020. "Bridging the gap between circular economy and climate change mitigation policies through eco-innovations and Quintuple Helix Model," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    13. Goos, Maarten & Rademakers, Emilie & Röttger, Ronja, 2021. "Routine-Biased technical change: Individual-Level evidence from a plant closure," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(7).
    14. Francesco Bripi, 2019. "Business travels, multinational firms and international trade," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 523, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    15. Losacker, Sebastian, 2022. "‘License to green’: Regional patent licensing networks and green technology diffusion in China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    16. Spitz, Alexandra & Bertschek, Irene, 2003. "IT, Organizational Change and Wages," ZEW Discussion Papers 03-69, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    17. Jaime Arellano-Bover & Fernando Saltiel, 2026. "Differences in On-the-Job Learning across Firms," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(1), pages 149-188.
    18. Zhongju Liao, 2018. "Corporate culture, environmental innovation and financial performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(8), pages 1368-1375, December.
    19. Barıs Aksu & Gulsen Akman, 2024. "How Eco-innovation Determinants and Eco-innovation Strategy Influences Sustainability Performance of SMEs? Mediating Role of Eco-innovation Strategy," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(2), pages 9368-9392, June.
    20. Blien, Uwe & Dauth, Wolfgang & Roth, Duncan H.W., 2021. "Occupational routine intensity and the costs of job loss: evidence from mass layoffs," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:5:p:2217-:d:1352512. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.