Research On The Relationship Among IT Capability,Digital Transformation Strategy And Digital Innovation Performance Of Traditional Manufacturing Enterprises

Digital technologies such as 5G technology,artificial intelligence and Internet of Things are having a transformative impact on enterprise production and social life in digital age.And data has become a new factor of production and a driving force of innovative output as important as human resources and land.Particularly,Since the comprehensive outbreak of COVID-19,it has hindered the movement of people across regions and the gathering of social groups,and directly affected the business negotiation,production and sales of labor-intensive enterprises.The increasingly complex external situation makes the production and operation of traditional enterprises face severe challenges,which have great dependence on labor force.They have to rethink the logic of their organization and operation.How to successfully use digital technology to achieve the strategic transformation of enterprises has become an urgent problem for all traditional enterprises.Although digital transformation and digital innovation are an emerging research topic and are receiving more and more attention,especially promoting the integration of the digital economy and the real economy has received much attention from national policies,industry and academia.In the process of practice,due to the double impact of the digital economy and the turbulent external environment,more and more large traditional manufacturing enterprises have lost their original competitive positions and have been surpassed by emerging Internet enterprises.Many traditional manufacturing industries are facing severe survival challenges.Some scholars put forward that in addition to relying on traditional technological innovation and marketdriven transformation and upgrading,traditional manufacturing enterprises can also rely on the emerging path of digital technology empowerment(Cheng and Su et al.,2021;Tie,2019).The digital transformation of an enterprise is manifested as a“comprehensive action”,of which the firm takes to take advantage of the opportunities brought by digital technology or avoid the threats brought by it.Scholars believe that this transformation is an organizational strategic change triggered by digital technology(Sambamurthy et al.,2003;Bharadwaj et al.,2013).However,many traditional manufacturing enterprises have difficulties in how to successfully implement digital transformation and obtain digital innovation performance.The existing research on the digital transformation of traditional manufacturing enterprises is still in the initial stage of exploring the internal mechanism of value creation(Cheng and Su et al.,2022)and theoretical logic(Yang and Yu et al.,2020),and there are still a lot blank need to explore.The digital transformation path of some typical traditional manufacturing enterprises is explored using the case study method.The digital transformation of traditional manufacturing enterprises is a process driven by the external environment and influenced by internal factors,but there are few existing studies on how to take into account different internal and external factors to successfully implement the process of digital transformation and digital innovation.The path mechanism of manufacturing enterprises from developing information technology utilization capabilities to successfully implementing digital transformation and obtaining digital innovation performance is still an unexplored research topic,especially how to match the resources and capabilities of different attributes within the enterprise in the process of digital transformation.In order to cope with the dual challenges of the institutional environment and the industry environment and obtain digital innovation performance,it is still a difficult problem for academia and managers.Based on the needs of practical development and the gaps in existing research,this paper mainly carries out research from two aspects.On the one hand,this paper systematically analyzes dynamic capability theory and institutional theory,and based on an integrated perspective,explores how manufacturing companies match the information technology capabilities(IT capabilities)and organizational legitimacy resources within the organization to successfully carry out digital activities and address legitimacy from the institutional environment:(1)Analyze the mechanism of enterprise IT capabilities to implement digital transformation strategies and achieve high digital innovation performance(digital product innovation performance and digital process innovation performance);(2)Explore the impact of organizational legitimacy on mechanisms of IT Capabilities,digital transformation strategies and digital innovation performance.On the other hand,the rapid dissemination and iteration of digital technology has also accelerated the speed of digital transformation of enterprises,which makes the implementation of digital transformation strategies by manufacturing enterprises different from traditional forms of organizational strategic changes.volatility and unpredictability.Therefore,based on the perspective of contingency theory,this paper further explores the mechanism of environmental dynamics on the IT capability,digital transformation strategy and digital innovation performance of manufacturing enterprises.Based on the analysis above.Firstly,this paper systematically analyzed the existing literature on IT capabilities,digital transformation strategies,digital innovation performance,organizational legitimacy and environmental dynamics based on the research of dynamic capability theory,institutional theory and contingency theory.Secondly,the paper further uses the cases of three traditional manufacturing enterprises to construct the theoretical model of this paper by exploratory case study method,and put forward 16 research hypotheses based on the theoretical model.Finally,through linear regression analysis and Bootstrap analysis of 231 samples of traditional manufacturing enterprises to verify the research hypothesis,the results show that:(1)IT capabilities help traditional manufacturing enterprises to obtain digital product innovation performance and digital process innovation performance;(2)Digital transformation strategy plays an intermediary role between IT capabilities and digital innovation performance(digital product innovation performance and digital process innovation performance);(3)Organizational legitimacy actively regulates digital transformation strategy and digital innovation performance(digital product innovation performance and digital process innovation performance);(4)the organizational legitimacy positively regulating mediating effect of IT capabilities,digital transformation strategies and digital innovation performance(digital product innovation performance and digital process innovation performance);(5)environmental dynamics(6)Environmental dynamism has a significant positive moderating effect on the relationship between IT capabilities and digital process innovation performance,but the moderating effect of product innovation performance is not significant;(7)Environmental dynamics have a significant positive moderating effect on IT capabilities,digital transformation strategies and digital process innovation performance mediation effects,as well as the moderating effects on IT capabilities,digital transformation strategies and digital product innovation performance mediation.Based on the perspective of integration of internal and external factors,this paper explores how enterprises match internal resources and capabilities with different attributes to cope with multiple challenges to their digital activities from two external environments(industry environment and institutional environment).Under pressure,by matching information technology capabilities and organizational legitimacy resources to successfully implement digital transformation strategies and obtain digital innovation performance.The research in this paper is a beneficial extension of the existing research on digital transformation and digital innovation,and at the same time has an important guiding role in guiding the digital transformation and digital innovation activities of traditional manufacturing enterprises.