Research On The Mechanism And Effect Of Digital Economy On Technological Innovation Of Small And Medium-sized Enterprises

At present,China is in an important historical period of the transition between old and new kinetic energy and the intersection of a new round of technological and industrial revolution.The digital economy represented by artificial intelligence,big data and cloud computing provides a new engine for innovation driven high-quality economic development.Small and medium-sized enterprises are the basic support of a country’s micro economy.In the new stage of innovation driven economic and social development,small and medium-sized enterprises have also become the most dynamic participants in technological innovation and one of the basic sources of strength for building an innovative country.The original intention of this paper is to explore the impact of digital economy on technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises,explain the mechanism of digital economy o n technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises,expand and deepen enterprise innovation theory,and provide theoretical and empirical support for promoting small and medium-sized enterprises to play the role of innovation subject adapting to their own characteristics.Starting with the comparison of the basic characteristics of digital economy and traditional economy,this paper expounds the similarities and differences of technological innovation between large enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises,analyzes the practical difficulties faced by technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises,and then explains the impact of digital economy on the connotation and extension of technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises.Theoretically,this paper attempts to build a four-dimensional perspective mechanism model of the impact of digital economy o n technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises,and explore the mechanism of digital economy on technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises from four dimensions: financing constraints,information asymmetry,cost stickiness and entrepreneurial activity.Empirically,based on the panel data from 2011 to 2018,this paper calculates the digital economy development index at the urban level in China from the three levels of digital economy carrier,industrial digitization and digital industrialization,and selects small and medium-sized enterprises in CSMAR micro database as the research object.On this basis,this paper uses fixed effect model,spatial Dobbin model,threshold model and intermediary effect model to empirically study the impact of digital econo my o n technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises and its underlying mechanism,and further analyzes the possible heterogeneous impact of geographical location and urban level.The research conclusion shows that:(1)On the whole,China’ s urban digital economy shows an upward trend year by year,increasing from 0.2306 to 0.4023 during the sample period,with an average annual growth rate of more than 20%.However,the geographical heterogeneity is significant,and the gap between the East and the West and the South and North is very obvious.Moran’s I index,Gear’s C index and Getis-Ord’s G index are significantly positive,and most cities show the spatial correlation mode of high-high(H-H)and low-low(L-L)agglomeration.The three-dimensional kernal density map shows that the distribution of China’s urban digital economy shows an evolution trend from single peak to double peak and the n to multi peak during the sample period,which shows that the development of China’s urban digital economy shows a trend of multi-level differentiation,and the phenomenon of digital divide is significant.(2)Digital economy has a significant incentive effect on the technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises.For every 1% increase in the development level of digital economy,the technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises will increase by0.145%.Specifically,the incentive effect of digital economy carrier on the technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises is not obvious,and shows a trend of attenuation over time.Industrial digitization and digital industrialization have long-term significant incentive effects on technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises.In addition,the results of threshold model and spatial Dobbin model show that the impact of digital economy on technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises presents the characteristics of increasing marginal effect and spatial spillover effect.(3)The impact of digital economy on technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises shows heterogeneity at macro and micro levels.From the perspective of macro geographical region,the impact of digital economy on the technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises in the eastern region is significantly higher than that in the central and western regions.Compared with northern cities,the digital economy in southern cities has a more significant incentive effect on technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises.From the perspective of city level,compared with ordinary peripheral cities,the digital economy has a more significant incentive effect on the technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises in core cities.From the micro enterprise attribute,the development of digital economy has a significant incentive effect on the technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises in high-tech industry,and the impact on the technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises in non-high-tech industry is not obvious enough.From the perspective of enterprise cycle,the development of digital economy has a more significant positive impact on the technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises in the growth period,followed by the innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises in the mature period.However,the impact of digital economy on the technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises in the aging period is not significant.(4)This study confirms that entrepreneurial activity,information asymmetry,financing constraints and cost stickiness are the intermediary mechanisms of digital economy affecting technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises.On the one hand,digital economy can stimulate technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises by relaxing financing constraints,alleviating information asymmetry and reducing cost stickiness.On the other hand,the digital economy has provided the entrepreneurs with the fertile soil for entrepreneurship.The increase of entrepreneurial activity has increased the number of small and medium-sized enterprises,thus enhancing the technological innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises.