Research on the nonlinear impact of digital transformation&nbsp;on innovation output of enterprises

WANG Xiang-Lu; LUO Jin-Lian; GENG Xin

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Science Research Management ›› 2023, Vol. 44 ›› Issue (8) : 1-10.

Research on the nonlinear impact of digital transformation on innovation output of enterprises

Luo Jinlian¹, Wang Xianglu¹, Geng Xin²

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Abstract

Under the background of the accelerated development of digital economy, human economy and society has rapidly entered a "digital" era. Driven by both policy orientation and practical development, digital transformation is also deeply engraved in the evolution of Chinese enterprises. Although digital technology provides new development opportunities, the effect of digital transformation of most enterprises in practice is not ideal. It should be noted that the essence of digital transformation lies in the reconstruction of productivity and whether enterprises carry out all-round innovation with digital technology in the process of transformation is the key to realize digital drive and build core competitiveness. However, the research on enterprise digital transformation and innovation output has long been controversial. For that reason, a more systematic study on how digital transformation affects enterprise innovation output and what is the internal mechanism of the complex relationship between digital transformation and innovation output has significant theoretical value and practical significance.Based on the data of A-share listed companies in China from 2007 to 2020, this paper empirically tested the nonlinear impact of digital transformation on enterprise innovation output and its mechanism. In the research design, this paper used the natural logarithm of the number of invention patents to measure the innovation output. Meanwhile, the ratio of digital intangible assets to total intangible assets and the natural logarithm of the frequency of digital related words in the annual reports of listed companies were used to measure the digitization degree of enterprises. The empirical analysis results showed that digital transformation has a significant inverted U-shaped impact on enterprise innovation output. With the transformation of digital degree from low to high, enterprise innovation performance presents a nonlinear evolution trend of first rising and then falling. The above conclusions are still valid after the endogenous tests of enterprise level and industry level with the fixed effect model, two-stage least squares model, sys-GMM dynamic panel model and a series of robustness tests. The further mechanism tests by stepwise regression and bootstrap sampling showed that R&D authorization and human capital structure play an inverted U-shaped mediated role between digital transformation and innovation output. On the one hand, digital technology promotes the upward movement of the information cost curve and the downward movement of the agency cost curve to realize R&D authorization, but the limitations of departmental decision-making and resource constraints increase accordingly, making R&D authorization play an inverted U-shaped mediated role between digital transformation and innovation output; On the other hand, digital technology optimizes the human capital structure of enterprises through "substitution effect" and "complementary effect", but the advanced digital construction has a crowding out effect on human capital investment, making the human capital structure act as an inverted U-shaped intermediary between digital transformation and innovation output.The conclusion has enriched and expanded the nonlinear logical exploration between digital transformation and enterprise innovation benefits, and provided important enlightenment for enterprises to improve digital transformation strategy and improve innovation benefits from the following aspects: (1) enterprises should grasp the opportunity of the rapid development of digital economy, actively and steadily implement digital transformation, and continuously improve the integration of enterprises and digital technology in the process of transformation. Meanwhile, At the same time, enterprises need to combine their resource capacity endowment in digital construction to avoid the negative effect of blindly expanding digital investment on innovation output. (2) When using digital technology to reconstruct and integrate the original innovation mode, enterprises should attach great importance to the allocation of R&D power suitable for digitization, and make systematic planning according to the organizational characteristics. (3) Highly skilled talents should play a key role in the process of digital transformation. When introducing digital technology, enterprises should not only systematically consider the coordination of digital investment and human capital investment, but also strengthen the work commitment to employees and give full play to the role of human capital structure in promoting innovation output.

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digital transformation / innovation output / R&D authorization / human capital structure

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Luo Jinlian, Wang Xianglu, Geng Xin.

Research on the nonlinear impact of digital transformation on innovation output of enterprises

[J]. Science Research Management. 2023, 44(8): 1-10

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