DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND CORPORATE TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION: AN ANALYSIS BASED ON DIFFERENCES IN FIRM DEVELOPMENT STAGES
TL;DR
The empirical results indicate that digital transformation can significantly promote the level of technological innovation and suggest that enterprises should formulate targeted digital development paths to support their development.
Abstract
In the current era, digital transformation has become an irresistible trend of social development. This study mainly explores the performance of technological innovation in the process of corporate digitalization.The research classifies the samples by firm age and conducts grouped regression analysis.This paper also carries out robustness tests on the main effect by narrowing the sample period and adopting alternative estimation methods. The results verify the high reliability of the research conclusions. Based on the theoretical framework of technological innovation, this study selects Chinese A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2022 as research samples.The empirical results indicate that digital transformation can significantly promote the level of technological innovation. Furthermore, grouped regression results reveal that firms with heterogeneous resource endowments perform differently in this process.During digital transformation, mature enterprises have sufficient time to accumulate tangible and intangible resources, which are conducive to their technological innovation.Young firms, with a shorter establishment history, suffer from relative resource scarcity, which hinders their technological innovation outcomes amid digital transformation. This study suggests that enterprises should formulate targeted digital development paths.Meanwhile, the government shall implement macroeconomic regulation and formulate differentiated subsidies for various enterprises to support their development. Future research can expand the research scope to include more types of enterprises and conduct in-depth analysis on the main effect.