A Conceptual Framework for Green Financing: Integrating TOE and Dynamic Capabilities

Abstract

Green financing (GF) is a key tool for global sustainable economic transformation, but enterprises still face challenges such as investor confidence, policy adaptability, and financing costs. Existing studies mainly focus on external drivers and overlook how enterprises build internal capabilities to optimize GF. The traditional technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework emphasizes static influences and lacks the adaptability to the evolving green financial environment. This study integrates Dynamic Capabilities (DC) theory, introduces green innovation capabilities (GIC) as a mediating variable, constructs a GF conceptual framework, and uses a systematic literature review and theoretical modeling to explore how technology, organization, and environment dimensions of TOE directly support GF adoption and enhance its adaptability through GIC. In addition, DC strengthens GIC through sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring capabilities, enabling enterprises to dynamically adjust resources and optimize GF strategies, thereby expanding the applicability of the TOE framework. This study fills the gap in the TOE framework in the study of dynamic GF adaptability and reveals the mechanism of how DC promotes GF through GIC. In practice, the government should provide tax incentives based on GIC, enterprises should build dedicated green finance strategy teams and leverage digital technologies like blockchain and AI to optimize GF project evaluations, thereby enhancing the long-term stability of the GF market. Investors should include GIC indicators in ESG ratings to further promote the adoption of green finance strategies. This study provides a theoretical basis for future empirical research.