Impact of Digital Transformation on Accelerating Enterprise Innovation—Evidence from the Data of Chinese Listed Companies

Abstract

Under the background of the rapid development of digital economy, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of digital transformation on enterprise innovation and selects the panel data of China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2013 to 2021 as the research objective is to study the impact of digital transformation on enterprise innovation from theoretical and empirical perspectives. First, we find that digital transformation accelerates enterprise innovation, a conclusion that has been validated through robustness testing. Second, digital transformation impacts enterprise innovation by enhancing productivity and information transparency. Third, financing constraints and financial redundancy play distinct regulatory roles in the process. Fourth, heterogeneity analysis finds that the role of digital transformation in promoting enterprise innovation has different effects in state-owned and non-state-owned enterprises, high-tech and non-high-tech enterprises, and enterprises with different life cycles. Finally, the functional analysis suggests that further investigation is needed to determine whether digital transformation can significantly promote the sustainable development of enterprises through innovation while also recognizing that this function may have a lag effect. Overall, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of digital transformation and innovation-driven practices and encourages more significant integration of the real and digital economies.