From Environmental Investment to Green Innovation: Ecosystem Niche and Open Innovation in Corporate Green Transition

Manufacturing firms face a persistent challenge in green transition: environmental spending does not automatically generate meaningful innovation. This study examines how environmental protection investment affects green innovation performance through a firm’s central niche in a green innovation ecosystem and whether open innovation changes these pathways. Using a balanced panel of 1054 Chinese A-share-listed manufacturing firms from 2016 to 2022 (7378 firm-year observations), we estimate firm and year fixed-effects models and conduct mediation, subgroup, and robustness analyses. Environmental protection investment is positively associated with green innovation performance. Central niche depth partially mediates this relationship, suggesting that sustained concentration in core green technologies helps firms convert environmental resources into innovation outcomes. Central niche diversity does not mediate the relationship in the full sample. Open innovation exerts a direct positive moderating effect on environmental protection investment and green innovation, and it can amplify the transformation of the innovation niche depth into green innovation. A sensitivity analysis excluding 2022 suggests a diversity-mediated effect among open innovators, although this evidence remains exploratory. The findings show that corporate green transition depends on investment intensity, technological positioning, and collaboration governance. This study extends research on sustainable strategy and organizational transition by linking environmental resource commitment, ecosystem positioning, and open innovation.