Abstract:    China′s digital transformation and innovation development trends have attracted widespread attention. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly pointed out that reinforcing the principal role of enterprises in innovation and giving full play to the guiding and supporting role of key high-tech enterprises. How corporate strategies can improve digital innovation performance and promote the development of the digital economy is now a hot topic in industry and academia. Based on 1,612 unbalanced panel data of A-share listed digital enterprises in China from 2007-2017, this paper studied the mechanism of the impact of digital transformation strategy on corporate digital innovation performance. The research results showed that: (1) corporate knowledge absorptive capacity plays a partially mediating role in digital transformation strategy and corporate digital innovation performance; (2) the nature of ownership positively moderates the positive relationship between knowledge absorptive capacity and digital innovation performance; and (3) the concentration of ownership negatively moderates the positive contribution of knowledge absorptive capacity to digital innovation performance. This study will help enterprises clarify the digital innovation performance path, help companies succeed in digital innovation, enhance the digital innovation capabilities of Chinese companies, and serve the development of the digital economy.

Key words: digital transformation strategy, digital innovation performance, knowledge absorptive capacity, property rights nature, ownership concentration