Impact of innovation driven on the upgrading of China’s industrial structure

Rhythm of internationalization, defined as regularity of internationalization process, affects firms’ internationalization performance because time compression diseconomies reduce firms’ absorbing capacity and green trade barriers pose severe obstacles. Rather than focusing on the impact of general green technology innovation without constraints of context, this study examines the influence of green technology innovation ambidexterity on the rhythm of internationalization within the context of differentiated internationalization scope, internationalization extent and internationalization depth. Green technology innovation ambidexterity contains two types of technology innovation: green explorative technology innovation and green exploratory technology innovation. China is adopted as a special case to be considered, given the volume of its industrial production, the intensity of green technology innovation, and the obvious pace of internationalization in the recent years. With the two-way fixed effect model and listed manufacturing firms in China from 2008 to 2016, this paper finds a significantly negative relationship between firms’ green technology innovation ambidexterity and the rhythm of internationalization; the results for moderation role of internationalization scope,
extent and depth are mixed.

This study indicates that green technology innovation ambidexterity helps firms pursue a rhythmic international progress, and the context for maximizing the role of different types of green technology innovation is further clarified. For green exploratory technology innovation, it could exert its best part within larger scope, lower depth and extent of internationalization; for green exploitative technology innovation, it could exert its best part within narrower scope of internationalization. Therefore, this study provides the optimal portfolio of internationalization for green technology innovation ambidexterity.