Government Digital Product Procurement and Enterprise Digital Transformation

This study investigated whether and how government procurement of digital products influenced corporate digital transformation. Using data on Chinese listed firms from 2015 to 2022 and applying web-scraping techniques to identify government procurement of digital products, it found that firms securing more government digital procurement contracts were more likely to undertake digital transformations. The effect was more pronounced for large-scale, mature, state-owned firms, and those located in regions with a lower level of digital infrastructure or non-technology-based enterprises. Mechanism analysis suggested that government procurement supported digital transformation by strengthening expectations of future market demand, reducing cash flow risk, and alleviating transformation-related uncertainty. These findings provide empirical evidence that, in the digital intelligence era, government procurement of digital products can boost the digital transformation of enterprises.