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The S-shaped relationship between R&D investment and green innovation after cross-border merge and acquisition: evidence from China

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Abstract

In the economic transition process, emerging markets are recognizing the importance of accessing sophisticated technologies to green innovation. After cross-border merge and acquisition (M&A), research and development (R&D) investment has become the basic condition for acquiring mature market technologies. Many studies suggest that R&D can promote green innovation. However, in the context of cross-border M&A, the relationship between R&D and green innovation is more complicated. Based on the knowledge-based view and stakeholder theory, this paper takes 230 cross-border M&A events at Chinese enterprises as samples. The conclusions show that instead of a linear relation, the influence of R&D input on green innovation performance after cross-border M&A is in an “S-shape”; the political connection and institutional distance of enterprises play a negative role in promoting the relationship between R&D input and green innovation performance after cross-border M&A.

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Availability of data and material

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Notes

  1. Corresponding to the significance level in the tables, we set three significance levels of 10%, 5%, and 1%.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to the Environmental Science and Pollution Research’s editors and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and careful guidance.

Funding

This study was supported by the project of the National Key Social Science Foundation, “Research on the Main Influencing factors and Operation Promotion Mechanism of Creative Asset-seeking Transnational Mergers and Acquisitions” (Grant No.12AZD034), and National Key Social Science Foundation of China named “Research on Political Risks, Economic Risks, Security Risks, Operational Risks and Countermeasures for the construction of ‘One Belt and One Road’” (Grant No. 18VDL016).

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  1. School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430070, Hubei, China

    Jingjing Li & Xianming Wu

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  1. Jingjing Li
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  2. Xianming Wu
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Jingjing Li. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Xianming Wu and Jingjing Li, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Appendix

Appendix

Tables 4-6.

Table 4 Robustness test of the dependent variable replaced
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Table 5 Sampling criteria of less than 10% equity deleted
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Table 6 Robustness test of test method replaced
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Li, J., Wu, X. The S-shaped relationship between R&D investment and green innovation after cross-border merge and acquisition: evidence from China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 55039–55057 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-19739-1

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