Is There Any Difference in the Impact of Digital Transformation on the Quantity and Efficiency of Enterprise Technological Innovation? Taking China’s Agricultural Listed Companies as an Example

Peng Wang,Zejun Li,Haihua Liu

doi:10.3390/su132312972

Abstract

The effect of digital transformation on enterprise technological innovation is reflected in quantity and quality, which may show heterogeneity. In this regard, this paper uses the data of China’s A-share agricultural listed companies from 2015 to 2020 to compare the differential impact of enterprise digital transformation from the perspective of quantity and quality of technological innovation. Firstly, the Tobit model is used to test whether there are differences in the impact of digital transformation on the quantity and quality of technological innovation of agricultural enterprises, and heterogeneity is tested according to the nature of enterprises. Secondly, this paper explores the reasons digital transformation has different effects on the quantity and quality of technological innovation through mechanism analysis. Finally, according to the threshold model, the conditions for digital transformation to promote the quantity and quality of technological innovation of agricultural enterprises are discussed. The empirical results show that, first, the digital transformation of agricultural enterprises only promotes the number of technological innovations, and there is heterogeneity in the nature of enterprises, but the innovation efficiency is not affected. Second, the period expense rate will lead to digital transformation, having different effects on the quantity and efficiency of technological innovation of agricultural enterprises. Third, the impact of digital transformation on the technological innovation efficiency of agricultural enterprises has a significant single threshold effect, and when the period expense rate is less than the threshold, the digital transformation has a significant role in promotion.

Highlights

Through the internal mechanism research, this paper studies how digital transformation can effectively improve the quality of enterprise technological innovation, explores the conditions for digital transformation to promote the quality of innovation and prevents the recurrence of the problem of “high quantity and low quality”
As shown in column (2), under the influence of the period expense ratio, the coefficient of influence of digital transformation on the number of technological innovations of agricultural enterprises is 6.266, which is significant at a significance level of 5%; the period expense ratio affects the number of technological innovations of agricultural enterprises; the influence coefficient is 0.378, and it is significant at the 5% significance level
This paper explores the conditions for digital transformation to effectively improve the efficiency of technological innovation, that is, to explore the size of the period expense rate when digital transformation effectively improves the efficiency of technological innovation in agricultural enterprises

Summary

Introduction

Digital transformation is a way to solve complex and uncertain problems and improve innovation ability and operation efficiency by using digital technology. Enterprises can better grasp the needs of the market and promote the iterative innovation of products and services [1,2]. From the internal point of view, digital transformation will lead to changes in the enterprise structure to a certain extent and promote the enterprise to adapt to the structure of the external environment. Digital transformation needs a more efficient and open organizational form as the carrier so that enterprises can produce new ways of value creation. Enterprises implementing digital transformation can use data to optimize transaction processes, reduce transaction costs and improve the transaction success rate, so as to make enterprises develop well [3].

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion