The Social Architecture of Green Technology Governance: Digital Transformation, Labor Stratification and Green Digital Education in China’s High-Tech Sector

Abstract

Against China’s dual carbon strategic agenda and the deep integration of digital economy and real manufacturing, green technological innovation has long been framed as an industrial economic driver for high-tech sectors. Yet insufficient scholarly attention has been paid to its intertwined social, labour and educational repercussions—core domains of social science research. Digital transformation and environmental regulation jointly reshape corporate green innovation incentives, while simultaneously restructuring labour markets, widening inter-regional social inequalities, and exposing systemic gaps in public green digital literacy education. Drawing on balanced provincial panel data covering 30 Chinese provincial-level high-tech industries from 2012 to 2022, this study constructs multi-dimensional composite indicators of digital transformation and environmental regulatory stringency via the entropy weight method. It empirically estimates the baseline impact of industrial digitalisation on green innovation, and systematically unpacks the moderating social mechanisms embedded within environmental policy enforcement. Heterogeneity analyses are implemented across high-tech sub-sectors and three major geographic zones (Eastern, Central, Western China). Macro panel findings are triangulated with micro firm-level questionnaire data, and three robustness strategies (variable substitution, instrumental variable estimation, lagged variable processing) mitigate endogeneity bias. The empirical results reveal three interlinked economic-socio-educational outcomes: (1) Digital transformation significantly raises both the quantity and quality of green patents within hightech industries by reducing information frictions and optimising cross-regional innovation resource allocation, yet it exacerbates labour skill stratification and creates uneven access to digital green training resources across regions; (2) Environmental regulatory intensity positively moderates the digitalisation-green innovation linkage, consistent with an extended Porter Hypothesis contextualised to digital societies; stringent environmental compliance pressures push firms to invest in digital low-carbon upgrades, but simultaneously erode employment security for low-skilled workers and highlight underinvestment in vocational green technology education; (3) Pronounced industrial and regional social heterogeneity exists: synergies between digital transformation and environmental governance (alongside associated labour and educational pressures) are most salient in electronic information manufacturing and Eastern coastal provinces, whereas aerospace manufacturing and Western inland regions fail to realise equitable green transition outcomes due to inadequate digital infrastructure and under-resourced public environmental education systems. This paper reconceptualises digital-green industrial dynamics through sociological stratification theory and public policy education frameworks, expanding the theoretical scope of the Porter Hypothesis into social science discourse. Beyond industrial policy recommendations, it delivers transferable global insights for inclusive labour governance and green digital curriculum design, offering cross-national lessons for social scientists and education practitioners studying sustainable industrial transitions.