Green technological innovation is a core driving force for firms’ low-carbon transformation. However, because critical green technologies and knowledge are often dispersed across upstream and downstream partners within supply chains, firms’ green transformation faces substantial challenges. Previous studies have primarily focused on internal drivers at the firm level while overlooking the empowering role of green collaborative cooperation among supply chain partners. To address this gap, this study introduces empowerment theory to systematically examine how supply chain green strategic alliances enhance firms’ green innovation capability. Using a sample of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2011 to 2023, we construct a firm-level indicator of supply chain green strategic alliances based on textual analysis and machine learning techniques and empirically test its impact on green innovation. The results show that participation in green strategic alliances significantly promotes firms’ green innovation. Mechanism analyses further reveal that this effect operates through the reconstruction of green knowledge, increased environmental investment, and improved green governance. Moreover, the positive effect is more pronounced in regions with stronger intellectual property protection, greater green credit support, and stricter environmental regulation, as well as among firms with closer supply chain relationships. This study identifies supply chain green strategic alliances as a key inter-organizational empowerment mechanism and provides important practical implications for leveraging supply chain collaboration to accelerate sustainable development and firms’ green transformation.
Xu et al. (Sat,) studied this question.