头部企业在数字化转型中的作用

The Role of Leading Enterprises in Digital Transformation

随着数字中国建设步伐的不断加快,通过发挥头部企业优势来释放数字红利对中国经济发展具有重要意义。在区分头部企业和追随企业的基础上,本文将两类企业数字化转型纳入同一分析框架内,从理论层面考察头部企业数字化转型对追随企业数字化水平的影响。进一步地,本文使用2011~2020年沪深两市A股上市公司数据,从头部企业数字化转型视角进行实证检验。研究发现,头部企业数字化转型有效提升了追随企业的数字化水平。机制检验表明,示范效应、溢出效应和竞争效应是其中的重要作用路径,并且头部企业数字化转型的正向示范效应和溢出效应大于负向竞争效应。异质性分析表明,国有头部企业与成立时间短的头部企业对追随企业数字化水平的带动作用更大。本文为充分发挥头部企业在数字化转型中“以大带小”的作用,推动行业内头部企业与追随企业数字化协同发展,缩小企业间的“数字鸿沟”提供了一定的经验证据。

In recent years,China has been accelerating the development of Digital China,focusing on the implementation of digital economy strategy,and actively promoting the digital transformation of enterprises. However,regarding the current situation of enterprise digital transformation,most enterprises lack a digital transformation strategy,and the implementation process is difficult. In 2022,the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China announced a group of“digital pilot”enterprises,which are the benchmark for industrial digital transformation and lead other enterprises in digital transformation with successful digital transformation experiences. This provides an important practical basis for us to study the effect of enterprises leading the digital transformation on those following. The behavior of enterprises is often affected by the industry environment. If so,how? Answering this question has important theoretical and practical significance in the current upsurge of enterprise digital transformation.At present,the literature on the impact of digital transformation behavior among enterprises mainly focuses on the industry,industrial chain,or supply chain. Less attention has been paid to the impact of leading enterprises on the digital transformation of followers. Therefore,we study the impact of leaders on the digital transformation of followers and analyze it at both theoretical and empirical levels. At the theoretical level,we construct a theoretical model that includes the digital transformation of leaders and followers and propose research hypotheses. At the empirical level,we use the data of A-share listed companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock exchanges from 2011 to 2020 to test the influence of leaders on the digital transformation of followers and explore the channel of action and the heterogeneity of the influence.The main research findings are as follows:First,the digital transformation of leaders significantly improves the level of digital transformation of followers,which is still reliable after endogeneity and robustness tests. Demonstration,spillover,and competition effects are the action channels,and the positive demonstration and spillover effects of digital transformation of leaders are greater than the negative competition effect. Second,the heterogeneity results reveal that state-owned enterprises and leaders with a short history play a more obvious role in promoting the digital transformation level of their followers. State-owned enterprises,as the“pillar”of socialist economic construction with Chinese characteristics,shoulder the major mission of promoting the high-quality development of China's digital economy and industrial digital transformation. Therefore,the role of state-owned leaders in promoting the digital transformation level of followers is more obvious. In addition,young leading enterprises are more willing to engage in risky innovation activities and have the drive of technology research and development and the advantage of being a latecomer,playing a greater role in promoting the digital transformation of followers.The following three policy implications are drawn from the research conclusions. First,accelerate the digital transformation of the leaders in the industry, and give full play to their role in digital transformation. Enterprises should be encouraged to share data in accordance with the law and support indepth cooperation between followers and leaders. Second,competition policy should be appropriately adopted to stimulate the driving force of digital transformation of enterprises,and the demonstration effect of digital transformation of leaders should be strengthened to increase the spillover effect of digital technology. Finally,attention should be paid to the heterogeneous characteristics of digital transformation of different types of enterprises. Various enterprises often have different paths of digital transformation;thus,China should promote digital transformation according to the heterogeneous characteristics of enterprises. It is necessary to continuously accelerate the digital transformation of state-owned enterprises and actively play the leading role in the digital transformation of young enterprises to promote the coordinated development of industrial digital transformation.