Impacts of Digital Information Management Systems on Green Transformation of Manufacturing Enterprises

Under the background of increasingly prominent environmental problems, the establishment and application of digital information management systems established by the digital economy have brought new opportunities and challenges to the green transformation of manufacturing enterprises. Considering the micro level of Chinese manufacturing enterprises, does the adoption of information management systems really promote the improvement of the green transformation level of manufacturing enterprises? This paper takes the adoption of digital information management systems by China’s enterprises as a “quasi natural” experiment and uses the Difference-in-Difference and Propensity Score Matching model (PSM-DID) to explore its impact on the green transformation of manufacturing enterprises and its mechanism. The study found that the adoption of digital information management systems by enterprises significantly improved the green transformation level of manufacturing enterprises, especially the symbolic green transformation level, and had no significant positive effect on the substantive green transformation level. The mechanism analysis shows that manufacturing enterprises can achieve green transformation by adopting information management systems to improve the digital level, strengthen green innovation ability, and increase the redundant resources of enterprises. The heterogeneity analysis based on the internal governance and external environment of enterprises shows that the adoption of digital information management systems by manufacturing enterprises has significantly improved the green transformation level of non-state-owned enterprises, enterprises with high corporate governance, non-heavily polluting enterprises, and enterprises in the eastern region. The research conclusion enriches the research related to digitalization and green transformation of enterprises and has important inspiration for Chinese manufacturing enterprises to use digitalization capabilities to seek green sustainable development under the wave of digital economy development.