数字化转型能降低企业对大客户的依赖吗

Can Digital Transformation Effectively Reduce Companies'Reliance on Large Customers?

中国传统关系契约信任的非正式制度促使企业对大客户的依赖现象普遍存在,在数字经济迅速发展的时代不利于企业的长远发展。基于2007—2019年非金融类上市公司样本,分析数字化转型与大客户依赖之间关系的结果表明,数字化转型能有效地降低客户集中度,减少企业对大客户的依赖。该结果在通过平行趋势与安慰剂检验、更换变量度量指标和工具变量等稳健性检验后依然成立。就作用路径而言,企业竞争力和信息透明度的提升是数字化转型影响客户集中度的两个重要机制。进一步研究截面差异发现,在管理层能力较强、高技术行业、市场份额以及外部数字化水平较高的企业中,数字化转型对客户集中度的负向作用更加显著。上述结果不仅丰富了客户集中度的影响因素研究,为有效地降低企业对大客户的依赖提供经验证据,还为地方政府制定差异化政策以促进企业实施数字化转型提供决策依据。

China's traditional informal system of"relationship contract trust"has contributed to the widespread dependence of enterprises on large customers,which is not conductive to their long-term development in the era of rapid development of the digit economy.Based on the samples of non-financial listed companies in China from 2007 to 2019,this paper analyzes the relationship be-tween the digital transformation and the dependence on large customers.The results show that the digital transformation can effectively reduce customer concentration and then reduce their dependence on large customers.The results still hold after the robustness tests,such asthe parallel trend and placebo tests,changing the variable measurement indicatorsand the instrumental variables.In terms of the mechanisms of action,the improvement of corporate competitiveness and information transparency are two important mechanisms of the digital transformation affecting the customer concentration.Fur-ther examination of the cross-sectional differences reveals that the negative effect of digital transforma-tion on the customer concentration is more significant among the firms with stronger management ca-pabilities,higher technologies,higher market shares and higher levels of external digitization.The above findings can not only enrich the study of the influencing factors of customer concentration and provide empirical evidences for enterprises to reduce their dependence on large customers,but also pro-vide a decision-making basis for local governments to formulate differentiated policies to promote en-terprises'digital transformation.