From Compliance Pressure to Innovation Motivation: Configurational Paths and Causal Mechanisms of Environmental Governance in Enhancing Firm Green Technology Innovation Capability

Amid the dual imperatives of the global sustainability agenda and China's dual-carbon strategic goals, the pronounced quantity-quality imbalance in Chinese green patents lends critical urgency to investigating how environmental governance can effectively enhance firm green technology innovation capability(GTIC). Existing research struggles to resolve the firm compliance-innovation dual paradox and lacks systematic explanations for the synergistic pathways of multiple environmental governance elements and their underlying causal mechanisms, hindering theoretical advancement and precise policy design. Integrating dual legitimacy theory with an interactive governance framework, this study innovatively combines dynamic fsQCA and fuzzy-DEMATEL methods. It systematically identifies three temporally stable and equivalent configurational modes enhance GTIC, namely regulatory, collaborative and holistic. Furthermore, it uncovers an asymmetric cause-effect influence structure among environmental governance elements, wherein four cause elements such as command-and-control policy activate the systemic response of three effect elements such as government engagement through pressure transmission mechanisms. The developed two-dimensional analytical framework, linking configurational paths with causal mechanisms, not only provides a novel paradigm for understanding the complex processes of environmental governance in China but also offers a scientific basis for provincial governments to design differentiated and dynamic governance portfolios.