Abstract: To promote the green transformation in corporate production through digital technologies has become an essential path for enterprises to achieve high-quality development. However, during digital transformation, firms often face factor input constraints, leading to challenges of “unwillingness to transform” and “inability to transform.” Using the dynamic qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) method, this study explores how multiple digital transformation configurations affect the green transformation of manufacturing export enterprises. The results reveal that the effective mode of digital transformation that promote green transformation exhibits a strong dependence on digitalization outcomes. Both inter-group and intra-group analyses demonstrate significant temporal effects. After 2019, the four digital transformation modes are identified as highly effective in promoting green transformation. The heterogeneity analysis indicates that the modes through which manufacturing export enterprises leverage digital transformation for green upgrading are diverse and vary significantly across firm characteristics and industrial structures. The intra-group analysis of digital transformation inhibiting green transformation reveals that the transformation patterns that exhibit inhibitory effects are more common in small-scale enterprises. Therefore, policy efforts should focus on guiding manufacturing export enterprises to scientifically choose digital transformation elements, enhancing their confidence in using digital transformation to promote green transformation, reasonably matching transformation models, and avoiding potential transformation traps.

Key words: manufacturing industry, export enterprises, digitalization, green transformation, configurational analysis