工业机器人应用如何影响企业运营效率——基于中国制造业上市公司的实证研究

How does the Application of Industrial Robots Affect the Operational Efficiency of Enterprises:An Empirical Study on China’s Listed Manufacturing Firms

作为智能的柔性生产设备,工业机器人可以灵活调整产量规模,能够有效地帮助企业应对需求不确定性和不可预料的外部冲击,提升企业运营效率,获取竞争优势。本文利用国际机器人联盟(IFR)工业机器人报告公布的2014—2019年分行业工业机器人存量数据以及1710家中国制造业上市公司的微观数据,采用“中国企业层面工业机器人渗透度”指标衡量中国企业对于工业机器人的运用程度,并采用工具变量法缓解模型内生性问题,实证检验了工业机器人应用对中国制造业上市公司运营效率的提升作用。本文进一步从是否为国有企业、股权集中度和技术水平三个维度考察了企业特性对“工业机器人提升运营效率”效应的调节作用。研究发现,在国有企业及技术水平越低的企业中,企业机器人渗透度的提高对企业运营效率的提升作用越显著。本文最后为政府和企业在“如何提升工业机器人应用效果”问题上提出了可行建议,为中国制造业企业提高自身运营效率提供了一定的指导思路。

As intelligent flexible production equipment,industrial robots can flexibly adjust the output scale,which can effectively help enterprises cope with demand uncertainty and unpredictable external shocks,improve enterprise operation efficiency,and obtain competitive advantages.In this paper,the stock data of industrial robots in different industries from 2014 to 2019 released by the International Federation of Robotics(IFR)Industrial Robots Report and the microdata of 1,710 listed Chinese manufacturing companies are used.The“penetration degree of industrial robots at the Chinese enterprise level”index is used to measure the application degree of industrial robots in Chinese enterprises,and the instrumental variable method is used to alleviate the endogeneity problem.This paper empirically tests the role of industrial robot applications in improving the operational efficiency of listed manufacturing companies in China.This paper further investigates the moderating effects of enterprise characteristics on the effect of“industrial robots improving operational efficiency”from three dimensions:whether they are state-owned enterprises,ownership concentration,and technological level.It is found that in state-owned enterprises and enterprises at lower technological levels,the improvement of enterprise robot penetration has a more significant effect on enterprise operation efficiency.In the end,this paper puts forward feasible suggestions for the government and enterprises on“how to improve the application effect of industrial robots”and provides certain guiding ideas for Chinese manufacturing enterprises to improve their own operational efficiency.