ABSTRACT The growing pressure on manufacturing industries to achieve a balance between economic growth and environmental protection has reinforced the necessity of digital technology‐driven innovation‐driven sustainability strategies. This paper investigates how corporate social responsibility, artificial intelligence capability, and green supply chain management can enhance sustainable performance within the Chinese manufacturing firms. Another objective of the study is to examine whether green innovation capability mediates the relationships and whether digital maturity moderates them. According to the natural resource‐based view and the stakeholder theory, a conceptual framework was constructed and empirically validated with the survey data of 313 managers working in manufacturing companies. The findings indicate that corporate social responsibility, artificial intelligence capability, and green supply chain management influence sustainable performance significantly. The role of green innovation capability is important in the mediation process as it converts strategic sustainability efforts into actual performance results. Moreover, digital maturity enhances the positive relationship between green innovation capability and sustainable performance, meaning that the more digital‐ready a firm is, the more it can take advantage of innovation activities. In contrast to the previous research where these factors were investigated independently, this study incorporates responsible practices, technological capability, and green supply chain management into a single framework within the framework of an emerging economy. The results indicate that managers are advised to be proactive in integrating responsible business, technological progress, and digital transformation to enhance sustainability performance. The research also has its theoretical and practical implications, as it describes how sustainability, the ability to innovate, and the ability to be digital contribute to the competitiveness of an organization. It is also proposed that further studies are necessary to extend the study to other contexts and to employ longitudinal data to gain a more in‐depth understanding of sustainability transformation over time.
Ying et al. (2026) studied this question.