数字创新、战略柔性与企业智能化转型——考虑环境复杂性的调节效应

Digital innovation, strategic flexibility and enterprise intelligent transformation——Based on the moderating effect of environmental complexity

利用数字创新推动企业智能化转型,已成为推进实体经济与数字经济深度融合发展、加快建设数字中国的新动能。本文采用机器学习方法刻画企业数字创新水平,并提出数字创新如何通过影响战略柔性进而作用于企业智能化转型的内在机制。研究发现:数字创新显著促进了企业智能化转型,并通过资源柔性和协调柔性正向影响企业智能化转型程度。同时,考察环境复杂性对数字创新与企业智能化转型关系所发挥的调节效应,发现企业所处环境复杂性越高,数字创新对智能化转型的促进作用越强。研究结论有助于揭示“环境-创新-战略”三轮驱动下的企业智能化转型升级“黑箱”,也为推动数字技术应用与发展提供了新的证据与政策启示。

With the rapid development of China’s digital economy,digital technology has become a new engine that promotes the transformation and upgrading of enterprises and achieves high-quality industrial development.In recent years,with the development of the digital age,research on corporate digital innovation has received extensive attention from academia from the theoretical and practical levels.Although existing studies have discussed the relationship between digital innovation and enterprise intelligent transformation,they only stay at the level of theoretical analysis.Empirical research systematically exploring the influence path and important role between digital innovation and enterprise intelligent transformation is relatively scarce.Moreover,existing research has not incorporated strategic flexibility factors and environmental complexity factors into the analysis framework of the relationship between digital innovation and corporate intelligent transformation.Given the gaps in existing research and the phenomenon of digital innovation,we are going to investigate the relationship between digital innovation and enterprise intelligent transformation based on the triple perspectives of information resource acquisition,organizational management changes,and flexible production methods.On this basis,we introduce strategic flexibility variables,explore the influence mechanisms of resource flexibility and coordination flexibility on the intelligent transformation of enterprises,and provide a reference for intelligent transformation and upgrading.Secondly,we examine the moderating role of environmental complexity and enrich theoretical research on digital innovation and digital management reform.Based on datasets of China’s new energy vehicle enterprises from 2011 to 2019,this study adopts machine learning method to verify our hypothesis.The empirical results show that:First,digital innovation has a positive and significant promotion effect on the intelligent transformation of enterprises,and the results are robust after using the two-stage model estimation of instrumental variables,substitution of core variables,consideration of missing variables,and reduction of corporate samples.Second,strategic flexibility has an intermediary effect between digital innovation and enterprise intelligent transformation.Specifically,digital innovation can not only strengthen resource flexibility,integrate and restructure existing resources and external resources,but also promote coordination flexibility and rational use and allocation of innovative resources to assist enterprise intelligent transformation and upgrading.Finally,environmental complexity not only positively regulates the role of digital innovation in promoting resource flexibility and coordination flexibility,but also promotes the positive effect of digital innovation on the intelligent transformation of enterprises.For practical implications,we suggest that enterprises need to accelerate the development of digital innovation models,give play to the comparative advantages of the new generation of digital technology,and achieve the goals of maximizing the value of intelligent transformation.In addition,the in-depth promotion of industrial digitization and digital industrialization requires not only to strengthen resource integration and data open sharing within the industry,but also to enhance the wide-area application and deep integration of cross-industry digitization.Furthermore,it is important to create a good digital infrastructure environment,realize digital participation in politics between different departments,and promote the intelligent transformation process between different industries and different enterprises.