企业数字化转型与现金持有——基于经营不确定性视角

Enterprise Digital Transformation and Cash Holding:Based on the Perspective of Business Uncertainty

在中国新旧动能转换的关键时期,以云计算、人工智能和5G为代表的数字技术蓬勃兴起,推动产业数字化和数字产业化加速重构经济新形态。本文基于数字经济建设的背景,实证检验了企业数字化转型与现金持有之间的关系。研究发现,数字化转型可以显著降低企业现金持有。上述结论在经过一系列稳健性检验和内生性处理后,依然显著。经济机制表明,数字化转型通过缓解经营不确定性,具体表现为提升存货管理能力、投资效率,降低息税前利润和现金流波动性,来减少企业出于预防动机而持有的现金。与此同时,本文排除了数字化转型可能通过缓解代理问题来降低企业现金持有的途径。横截面分析表明,企业数字化转型对现金持有的降低作用,在融资约束较高的样本中更为明显,即在企业集团化程度低、非国有企业以及未持有银行股份的样本中更为明显。经济后果分析表明,企业数字化转型在降低现金持有的同时,提高了现金持有的价值。在企业经营风险不断提高的情况下,强化数据要素驱动作用,助推数字技术广泛应用是提升企业价值的重要方式。本文通过探讨企业数字化转型对现金持有的影响,为监管层、企业以及投资者都提供了重要决策依据。

Under the changing domestic and international situation,enterprises have to reserve cash to cope with the impact of uncertainty.However,the excessive holding of cash by enterprises will not only cause idle resources,but also facilitate the opportunistic behavior of management,and ultimately damage the value of the company.In this context,how to improve the enterprise's capital management and allocation capabilities and resist operational risks is an urgent problem for enterprises to solve.At the same time,with the continuous advancement of the digital transformation of enterprises,digital technology is gradually integrated with business processes,which promotes the improvement of internal and external data analysis and governance efficiency,and affects corporate cash decision-making to a certain extent.On the one hand,the improvement of the level of digitalization provides a guarantee for enterprises to obtain more and more timely internal and external information.This not only helps companies understand customer needs,but also enables real-time monitoring of business risks.Thereby,digital transformation reduces the precautionary incentive for companies to hold cash.On the other hand,data visualization will reshape corporate management methods,enhance corporate information transparency,and weaken management discretion.Thereby,digital transformation reduces the agency incentive to hold cash.This paper analyzes the impact of digital transformation on corporate cash holdings based on the sample of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2010 to 2020.The study found that digital transformation will significantly reduce the level of corporate cash holdings.The above conclusions are still significant after a series of robustness tests and endogenous treatment.The economic mechanism shows that digital transformation can reduce the cash held by enterprises for preventive purposes by alleviating operational uncertainty,including improving inventory management ability,investment efficiency,reducing pre-interest and tax profit and cash flow volatility.At the same time,this paper excludes the possibility that digital transformation can reduce corporate cash holdings by alleviating agency problems.Cross-sectional analysis shows that the effect of corporate digital transformation on reducing cash holdings is more obvious in the samples with high financing constraints,that is,in the samples with low degree of enterprise group,non-state-owned enterprises and no bank shares.The analysis of economic consequences shows that the digital transformation of enterprises reduces the cash holdings and improves the value of enterprises'cash holdings.The marginal contributions of this paper to the existing literature mainly include the following aspects:First,unlike the previous literature that believes that digital transformation of enterprises can enhance investment opportunities,enhance transaction motivation and precautionary motivation,and increase corporate cash holdings,this paper finds that digital transformation of enterprises reduces precautionary motivation by alleviating operational uncertainty,thereby reducing corporate cash holdings.Second,this paper enriches the research on the resource allocation function of digital transformation at the enterprise level.Different from the perspectives of total factor productivity,specialization,economy,and performance growth,this paper takes cash holding decision-making as the starting point,and provides new evidence for financial decisionmaking for enterprises'digital transformation to improve resource allocation efficiency.Third,the research conclusion of this paper has important practical significance.Under the background of increasing global economic uncertainty,the analysis of the relationship between enterprise digital transformation and cash holding will help guide the enterprise management to actively promote digital transformation,adjust organizational structure and financial decision-making to improve risk responsiveness.It will help the government to better understand the economic effects of the existing digital policy,so as to play the role of the policy in the process of digital empowerment and industrial structure optimization.