The Impact Of Digital Transformation Of Group Subsidiaries On Ambidextrous Innovation

Digitalization has penetrated into all aspects of people’s lives and has greatly changed the economic,social and cultural forms.At the same time,the country vigorously promotes the development of the digital economy.The 14th Five-Year Plan particularly emphasizes the pursuit of a development model with higher quality and more advanced technology.Key areas include digitalization,5G,artificial intelligence,and big data.The 14th Five-Year Plan further proposes that by 2025,the contribution of the core digital industries to GDP should reach the goal of 10%.At present,the process of digital construction is accelerating,and the influence of digital technology on enterprises is deepening.Digital transformation is a transformation that integrates elements such as information,data,and technology.It is restructuring the business model,organizational structure,products and services of enterprises,laying the foundation for their innovative development.Therefore,innovation has become an important topic of enterprise-level research in the context of digitalization.As a common form of organization in the Chinese market,enterprise groups have the advantage of collaborative allocation of resources and play an important role in the process of using digital technology to achieve innovation goals.For subsidiaries,they can not only act as independent legal persons to establish relationships with entities in the external market,but also be embedded in the group,enjoying the synergy of knowledge and resources within the group.Therefore,digital transformation further amplifies the advantages of subsidiaries in innovation.In order to explore the impact of subsidiary digital transformation on innovation,this paper introduces the concept of ambidextrous innovation,explores the specific impact of subsidiary digital transformation on exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation,and explores the adjustment of geographical distance and institutional distance between parent and subsidiary companies,which has certain research significance in both theory and practice.Based on this,starting from the dynamic capability theory and the knowledgebased view,this study conducts an empirical test on the impact of the digital transformation of subsidiaries on ambidextrous innovation by sorting out the data of Ashare listed companies and their parent companies from 2009 to 2021.The results show that:(1)the digital transformation of subsidiaries has promoted both exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation;(2)The geographical distance between the parent and the subsidiary companies weakens the positive impact of the subsidiary’s digital transformation on exploratory innovation,and enhances the positive impact of the subsidiary’s digital transformation on exploitative innovation;(3)The institutional distance between parent and subsidiary companies weakens the positive impact of subsidiary digital transformation on exploratory innovation,and at the same time weakens the positive impact of subsidiary digital transformation on exploitative innovation.By subdividing subsidiary innovation into exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation,this study provides new research ideas for digital transformation,which is conducive to revealing the impact of subsidiary digital transformation on ambidextrous innovation activities.At the same time,this study introduces the geographical distance and institutional distance between parent and subsidiary companies as moderating variables,and extends the study to the group level to a certain extent,enriching the research on digital transformation at the group level.It also analyzes the reasons why the geographical distance and institutional distance between the parent company and the subsidiary company play different roles in the relationship between the digital transformation of the subsidiary company and the ambidextrous innovation relationship,and provides theoretical and practical support for the parent and subsidiary companies to carry out the digital transformation practice to improve the innovation output.