Digital Financial Inclusion Research On The Influence Of Technological Innovation Of Small And Medium-sized Enterprises

Small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs)are the mainstay of technological innovation and are crucial to China’s smooth shift to an innovation-driven economy.With a large number of SMEs in China,financial institutions are not inclined to extend credit to SMEs under the traditional financial model,making them face greater financing constraints,and the difficulty of financing has become a bottleneck to their innovative development.Digital inclusive finance,with its digital+technology advantages,can effectively alleviate SMEs’ financing difficulties by widening financing channels,reducing information segregation,lowering financing costs and improving financing efficiency,thus providing better financial support and conditions for SMEs’ technological innovation.Therefore,this paper mainly adopts literature analysis and empirical analysis methods to explore the relationship between digital inclusive finance and SMEs’ technological innovation in the context of the continuous development of digital technology,and to clarify the main influencing factors and mechanisms of SMEs’ technological innovation,so as to promote SMEs’ technological innovation and development.This research first systematically reviews and summarizes the existing literature,and on this basis,summarizes the progress of digital inclusive finance and the current situation of technological innovation of SMEs.Secondly,it expounds the theories of long tail,financial exclusion,inclusive growth,and technological innovation,laying the foundation for the establishment of the theoretical framework and the empirical research of this thesis.Then,based on the data of listed companies on the New Third Board from 2017 to 2021,this thesis selects specific SMEs with strong willingness and ability for technological innovation,to ensure the pertinence,validity and representativeness of the research data.It adopts fixed effect model and mediation effect model to explore the transmission mechanisms of financing constraints and financial risk in two channels,and conducts heterogeneity analysis based on enterprise life cycle,SME industry attributes and regional policy environment characteristics.Finally,it performs robustness tests by changing indicators.The main conclusions of the research are as follows: From the perspective of the overall and structural impact of digital inclusive finance,digital inclusive finance has a positive effect on the innovation activities of SMEs,and both the sub-dimensions of coverage breadth and service depth can empower the technological innovation of SMEs.From the perspective of transmission mechanisms,to solve the financing problems encountered by SMEs in the process of technological innovation,It should be addressed through the two paths of easing financing constraints and reducing financial risk.This thesis studies the heterogeneous factors affecting the technological innovation of SMEs from two dimensions: vertical and horizontal.First,the vertical heterogeneous factors are based on the enterprise life cycle theory to analyze the heterogeneity of the vertical path of SME development.Second,the horizontal comparative factors are based on the empirical study of the relevant sample enterprises on the New Third Board,and it is found that different industry attributes and regional institutional factors also have different ways and degrees of heterogeneous impact on the role of digital inclusive finance in SME technological innovation.Finally,based on the results of the whole thesis,the research puts forward targeted countermeasures and suggestions for digital inclusive finance to better serve and promote the technological innovation and development of SMEs from different levels such as government,SMEs and financial institutions.