Digital Transformation And Total Factor Productivity Of Enterprises

The report of the 19 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China noted that China’s economic development has entered a new normal,which has moved from the stage of rapid growth to the stage of qualitative development.Instead of simply taking GDP growth rate as the hero,China pays more attention to the improvement of total factor productivity.China has always relied on factor-driven and scale-driven extensive growth to enhance economic efficiency,but due to the impact of economic policy uncertainty,trade protectionism and international political frictions,the external environment for enterprise production has further deteriorated,and the growth rate of productivity has slowed down significantly.The Outline of the 14 th Five-Year Plan put forward a clear requirement of "driving the transformation of production mode,life style and governance mode by digital transformation as a whole",which made the academic circle and the society begin to pay attention to whether the development of digital transformation can promote the improvement of enterprise total factor productivity at the micro level.If so,what is the mechanism by which this effect occurs?Is the impact different for different enterprises? The issues discussed above not only contribute to the enrichment of the existing theoretical system of digital transformation,but can also significantly increase the accuracy of the national strategy of the "new infrastructure",promote the success of economic reform,and achieve sustainable and high-quality economic development.Based on a review of digital transformation research by domestic and foreign scientists,total factor productivity and the relationship between digital transformation and enterprise total factor productivity,this paper combines endogenous economic theory,resource dependence theory,information asymmetry theory,resource-based theory and agent theory,and takes as samples all enterprises registered for A-share in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2011 to 2021.The key word matrix of digital transformation is constructed to study digital transformation quantitatively,and the relationship and influence mechanism between digital transformation and total factor productivity of enterprises are further discussed.It is established that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between digital transformation and the total factor productivity of enterprises.At an early stage of digital transformation,the stimulating effect on the total factor productivity of enterprises is insignificant,but with the further development of digital investment,the enhancement effect becomes more and more obvious.However,excessive digital investment will reduce the total factor productivity of enterprises due to high coordination cost,investment cost and other factors.From the perspective of influencing mechanism,financing constraints faced by enterprises and organizational redundancy stock inside enterprises are the two key mediating factors that influence digital transformation on total factor productivity.On the one hand,the integration of digital technologies with the financial industry has given birth to a new form of digital finance,alleviating information barriers and distance barriers of traditional finance,helping long-tail enterprises to fully grasp financing information,explore effective financing paths,improve financing accessibility,and significantly ease financing constraints.Make enterprises have sufficient and stable capital flow to actively invest in innovation,improve total factor productivity,and form a virtuous cycle.On the other hand,the low production efficiency of China’s early manufacturing industry and extensive operation led to the formation of more organizational redundancies within the organization.In the absence of efficient management means,these organizational redundancies made enterprise management costs remain high,and ultimately led to the decline of enterprise total factor productivity instead of rising.To some extent,the application of digital technology can drive the reshaping of resource system,improve the transparency and informatization of resources,construct multi-dimensional enterprise resource database,increase the efficiency of resource allocation and risk management,as well as stimulate the growth of productivity of factors of production of the enterprise.Heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of digital transformation on aggregate factor performance is more evident in large enterprises,state-owned enterprises and enterprises with senior executives with overseas background.Finally,on the basis of the empirical conclusions of the study,appropriate proposals are put forward from the level of the state and enterprise,and the direction of further research is also sought.