企业数字化转型与商业信用供给

Corporate Digital Transformation and Trade Credit Supply

企业数字化转型重塑了经营管理模式,这种转变对企业在供应链上的资金分配行为有何影响呢?本文基于上市公司2011—2020年数据,实证检验企业数字化转型对其商业信用供给的影响及其作用机制。研究发现,企业数字化转型显著增加了其对客户的商业信用供给,呈现出资金溢出效应。机制分析表明,数字化转型能够提高供应链关系质量,使企业有更强的动机为客户提供商业信用;同时能够缓解融资约束、改善公司治理,从而提高企业商业信用供给的能力。异质性检验发现,在内部现金流少、关联方客户占比低、关系专用性投资多和市场竞争激烈时,数字化转型对商业信用供给的提升作用更为显著。本文的研究为理解数字经济和实体经济深度融合的微观经济效应提供了经验证据,并为进一步推动企业数字化转型进程,促进供应链上下游企业的高质量发展提供了理论参考。

In recent years,the digital economy has broken the limits of physical factors on traditional economic development and fundamentally changed the organizational logic of business society and the way value is created.However,the existing researches mainly focus on the value-enhancing effects of digital transformation on the enterprise itself,it is not yet possible to provide sufficient empirical evidence on the impact of capital allocation behavior along the supply chain.Trade credit is not only an alternative financing method,but also an important business strategy for enterprises.As an important capital rationing mechanism in the supply chain,competition theory suggests that providing trade credit to customers can perform the function of guaranteeing product quality,promoting sales,expanding market share and establishing long-term contractual relationships with customers.Exploring the impact of digital transformation on trade credit supply behavior is not only helpful to understand the role of digital transformation as a strategic change on enterprises’ business decisions,but also has important practical significance to promote supply chain stability.In order to deeply explore the effect of digital transformation on the trade credit supply,this paper based on the data of listed companies from 2011 to 2020,empirically examines the impact of corporate digital transformation on trade credit provision and its mechanism.The results show that companies with a high degree of digital transformation are more willing to increase the supply of trade credit.Further analysis shows that digital transformation can improve the quality of supply chain relationships,make companies have a stronger incentive to provide customers with trade credit,and at the same time alleviate financing constraints,improve corporate governance,and improve the enterprises’ ability to provide trade credit.Heterogeneity analysis from the dimensions of financing capacity and customer relationship shows that digital transformation has a more significant effect on the improvement of corporate business credit supply when internal cash flow is small,the proportion of related party customers is low,there are many relationship-specific investments and market competition is fierce.In other words,digital transformation not only alleviates the financing constraints of enterprises themselves,but also plays a capital spillover effect by increasing the supply of trade credit.Compared with existing research,the marginal contribution of this paper may be reflected in the following three aspects:Firstly,this paper extends the impact of digital transformation on enterprises to the customer level,enriching the study of the economic consequences of digital transformation in micro enterprises.The value creation effect of digitalization in enterprises has been focused on the internal economic and financial performance of enterprises,this paper takes trade credit as an point and finds that digital transformation can generate financial spillover effects and empower downstream enterprises in the supply chain,further enriching the existing research.Secondly,it extends the literature related to enterprises’ motivation to provide trade credit.The scale of trade credit supply is an important business decision for enterprises,and previous studies mainly focus on the impact of external capital acquisition ability on commercial credit supply,while this paper expands the literature by finding that digital transformation,an internal strategic change,also affects the distribution of benefits to customers.Finally,this paper finds that digital transformation is not only a “self-interest” behavior that can alleviate enterprises’ own financing constraints,but also an “altruism” that can improve the financial security of downstream enterprises.By providing more trade credit,enterprises can give up their liquidity to enterprises with financing difficulties in the downstream of the supply chain,which can help enterprises establish competitive advantages in the product market and meet the alternative financing needs of customers.This provides important policy insights for further promoting the digital transformation of enterprises and promoting high-quality economic development.