How digital transformation helps enterprises achieve high-quality development? Empirical evidence from Chinese listed companies

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore how digital transformation helps enterprises achieve high-quality development, including the mediating mechanism of information transparency, innovation capacity and financial stability, the moderating role of financing constraints and government subsidies, and the heterogeneous effects of property rights, size and growth.Design/methodology/approachThis study conducts two-way fixed-effect model using 780 samples of China's Shanghai-Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2012 to 2019.FindingsThe results show that digital transformation can effectively improve the total factor productivity (TFP) of enterprises through the triple channels of information transparency, innovation capability and financial stability. Meanwhile, financing constraints significantly inhibited the contribution of digital transformation to TFP, while government subsidies significantly increased the contribution of digital transformation to TFP. In addition, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), large enterprises and high-growth enterprises are more able to achieve high-quality development by increasing their digital transformation.Practical implicationsIn the process of implementing digital transformation, companies should actively improve information transparency, financial stability and innovation capabilities, and choose differentiated paths based on intrinsic characteristics such as property rights, scale and growth. At the same time, the government should actively improve not only the digital institutional environment but also the financial policy and credit system.Originality/valueThis study enriches the theoretical research framework of digital transformation and high-quality development by identifying the channel mechanisms and boundary conditions through which digital transformation affects high-quality development and expands the consequences of digital transformation and the antecedents of high-quality development.