高管团队注意力与企业数字化创新——来自中国A股上市公司的经验证据

Top Management Team Attention and Firm Digital Innovation: Empirical Evidence from Chinese A-share Listed Companies

数字经济时代,数字化创新是企业培育发展新动能的重要引擎,对促进“两化”深度融合和传统产业高质量发展具有不可忽视的意义。高管团队作为企业创新决策的制定者对促进数字化创新至关重要。基于注意力基础观的核心思想,使用中国沪深A股全部上市公司2015—2020年的数据,结合文本分析法,实证分析了高管团队注意力对企业数字化创新的影响,以及组织冗余和政府补助在二者关系间的调节作用。研究结果表明:(1)高管团队注意力对企业数字化创新产生显著地正向影响。高管团队在数字化创新上配置的注意力越多,越能激发企业的数字化创新。上述结论在经过倾向得分匹配、更换模型以及替换变量等一系列稳健性检验后依然成立。(2)组织冗余正向调节高管团队注意力与企业数字化创新之间的关系。组织冗余越充足,高管团队注意力越能有效促进企业的数字化创新。(3)政府补助在高管团队注意力影响企业数字化创新的过程中发挥正向调节作用,即政府补助越多,高管团队注意力对数字化创新的正向驱动效应越明显。(4)异质性分析结果表明高管团队注意力对数字化创新的积极影响不论是在制造业企业还是非制造业企业中都存在,且该积极效应在制造业企业中较为明显。

In the era of digital economy,digital innovation is an important engine for enterprises to cultivate new kinetic energy for development,and it is of great significance for promoting the deep integration of the"two industrializations"and the high-quality development of traditional industries.However,as far as the real situation is concerned,most enterprises in China are still in the exploratory stage for the application of digital technology,and the ambiguity of boundaries,heterogeneity of subjects,and complexity of the process of digital innovation,coupled with the inherent high-risk and long return on investment cycle of traditional innovation,determine the difficulty of its implementation.Therefore,digital innovation requires great attention of the top management team(TMT).As the makers and implementers of business decisions,the TMT attention and TMT's cognitive attitude towards digital innovation are the key factors affecting the effectiveness of corporate digital innovation.Through the combing of related literature,it is found that corporate digital innovation is influenced by the TMT's environmental cognition,resource cognition and other psychological cognitive factors,which are based on the specific cognitive characteristics derived from the TMT attention.Few studies have directly focused on the influence of the psychological cognitive factor of TMT attention on digital innovation.As a scarce resource of enterprises,TMT attention plays a key role in the process of major corporate decision making and implementation.Therefore,implementing and driving digital innovation cannot be achieved without the support of TMT attention.In view of this,this research takes all the listed companies of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares in China from 2015 to 2020 as research samples. Based on the attention-based view, this research focuses on exploring how TMT attentionaffects corporate digital innovation, and reveals the influence mechanism of the TMT's cognition on corporate digital innovationfrom a micro perspective. At the same time, combined with the attention situation principle, this study alsoexamines the moderating role of internal and external resources (organizational slack, government subsidies) in the processof transforming TMT attention into digital innovation. The findings are as follows: Firstly, the TMT attention significantlyand positively affects corporate digital innovation and exhibits industry heterogeneity. With the TMT attention in manufacturingfirms leading to a higher level of digital innovation compared to non-manufacturing firms. Secondly, abundant organizationalslack can reduce the concerns of resource constraints and performance pressure when the TMT makes digital innovationdecisions, which is conducive to the TMT to make digital innovation decisions based on its focus, and provides aresource guarantee for corporate digital innovation. Thirdly, the more government subsidies an enterprise receives, thehigher the enthusiasm of TMT concerned with digital innovation issues to implement digital innovation within the enterprise.Government subsidies have "incentive" and "certification" effects on corporate digital innovation. The label of governmentcertification is conducive to enterprises to expand external financing channels and obtain more external financing.The support of external funding can easily eliminate the fear of TMT, so that TMT will switch their attention to digitalinnovation.Based on the research findings, the following insights can be drawn: firstly, the TMT should prioritize digital innovationmatters. The TMT should not only update their knowledge of digital innovation in a timely manner, but also allocateadequate attention at each stage of digital innovation implementation and adjust decisions in a timely manner. Secondly,enterprises should take steps to put more emphasis on the TMT attention. Enterprises should support decisions made bythe TMT that promote the development of enterprises, ensuring that the TMT attention remains concentrated and avoidingthe problem of "talking without practice" of the TMT. Thirdly, enterprises should allocate their internal and external resourcesrationally. More specifically, enterprises should strengthen their investment in disposable resources for digital innovationafter integrating three categories of redundant resources. Simultaneously, enterprises should enhance the utilizationof government subsidies and actively seek external financing by leveraging the "certification" bestowed by such subsidiesto support digital innovation. Fourthly, from a governmental perspective, it is essential for the government to formulateand enhance incentive policies for digital innovation, thereby promoting enterprises to engage in it. In addition, the governmentshould intensify its supervision over the utilization of government subsidies by enterprises. Finally, the governmentshould establish closer connections with the TMT and regularly promote digital innovation to the TMT through entrepreneurforums, industry conferences and other means to attract the attention of the TMT.