technological innovation

  • 详情 Environmental Regulations, Supply Chain Relationships, and Green Technological Innovation
    This paper examines the spillover effect of environmental regulations on firms’ green technological innovation, from the perspective of supply chain relationships. Analyzing data from Chinese listed companies, we find that the average environmental regulatory pressure faced by the client firms of a supplier firm enhances the green patent applications filed by the supplier firm, indicating that environmental regulatory pressure from clients spills over to suppliers. When the industries of suppliers are more competitive or the proportion of their sales from the largest client is higher, suppliers feel more pressured to engage in green innovation, resulting in more green patent applications. Thus, via their negotiation power, client firms can prompt supplier firms to innovate to meet their demand for green technologies. Finally, we show that this effect is particularly pronounced when supplier firms are located in highly marketized regions, receive low R&D government subsidies, or have high ESG ratings.
  • 详情 The Impact of Digital Transformation on Enterprises’ Total Factor Productivity: Matching and Learning Mechanism
    This research study primarily examines the digital transformation’s internal mechanism promoting enterprises’ total factor productivity (TFP) based on the matching and learning mechanism. Afterward, this research article empirically examines the digital transformation’s influential mechanism on enterprises’ TFP, using the Chinese listed companies’ data on the “A” stock market for the time period ranging from 2007 to 2019. The major study findings are as follows: (1) the improvement of the digital transformation significantly increases enterprises’ TFP. The proposed conclusion remains robust after a series of robustness- and the endogeneity test. (2) Furthermore, mechanism analysis reveals that digital transformation effectively enhances enterprises’ TFP by eliminating resource misallocation in the industry. In addition to this, digital transformation relies on the mechanism of “learning by doing” to promote the technological innovation’s spillover effect; hence, effectively enhancing enterprises’ TFP. (3) Heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that the digital transformation’s impact on enterprises’ TFP is heterogeneous in the context of enterprise size, enterprise type, and enterprise ownership. Lastly, this study puts forward that government bodies should intensify the construction and investment in digital infrastructure, promote a series of institutional reforms, and support digital technological R&D practices.
  • 详情 Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Total Factor Productivity of Manufacturing Firms: The Moderating Role of Management Levels
    Based on the panel data of listed manufacturing companies in China from 2010 to 2019, the artificial intelligence (AI) index is constructed using the industrial robot data provided by the International Federation of Robotics, and the two-way fixed effect model is used to test the impact of AI on the total factor productivity (TFP) of enterprises. The results show that AI significantly improves the TFP of manufacturing enterprises, and this conclusion remains valid after robustness tests and endogeneity processing. AI promotes TFP by improving the level of human capital and technological innovation, and management and operational levels positively regulate the promotional effect of AI on the TFP of enterprises. Compared with manufacturing enterprises in the central and western regions, AI boosts the TFP of those in the eastern region; compared with non-state-owned enterprises, AI boosts the TFP of state-owned enterprises; and AI significantly boosts the TFP of high-tech and non-high-tech enterprises.
  • 详情 Strategies for Success: Overcoming Top Challenges in Chinese Enterprises
    Chinese enterprises are currently facing unprecedented economic transformations accompanied by a diverse array of challenges. This article delves into these challenges and provides management recommendations to assist companies in addressing these pressing issues. First, China's economic growth is gradually slowing, prompting companies to explore new avenues for growth, such as diversifying their products and markets, enhancing research and development, and expanding into emerging markets. Second, the uncertain global trade landscape has impacted exports and supply chains, necessitating diversified supply chains, new trade partnerships, and proactive strategies to navigate potential trade policy changes. Additionally, the pressure of technological innovation cannot be underestimated, urging companies to increase R&D investment, collaborate with other enterprises on research, and recruit and nurture high-quality tech talent. Furthermore, with the Chinese government's growing focus on environmental concerns, companies need to invest in clean production technologies, build sustainable supply chains, and actively fulfill their social responsibilities. Other challenges including rising labor costs, intellectual property protection, financial risks, regulatory compliance, talent recruitment and retention, and digital transformation all require proactive responses. By adopting proactive management strategies, Chinese enterprises can thrive in this era filled with both opportunities and risks, achieving sustainable growth and enhanced competitiveness.
  • 详情 The Power of Culture: Confucianism and Enterprise Green Technology Innovation
    The study explores the impacts and processes of traditional Confucianism on the green technology innovation behavior of organizations from the perspective of the informal system, using samples of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2003 to 2022. The findings indicate that Confucianism has a significant promotional effect on green technological innovation, which remains robust after using the cross-multiplier term between the number of regional Confucius temples and the mean ESG of firms as an instrumental variable to mitigate the endogeneity problem and a series of tests. According to mechanistic research, Confucianism works largely through two channels: reducing agency conflicts and raising environmental consciousness. Further investigation reveals that there is a substitution impact between Confucianism in the informal institution and environmental legislation in supporting green technology innovation in firms. To encourage green technological innovation in enterprises, it is critical to emphasize the integration of informal and formal systems, as well as to fully use traditional culture’s governance efficacy in supporting the enterprise green transformation.
  • 详情 The real effect of shadow banking: evidence from China
    We provide firm-level evidence on the real effects of shadow banking in terms of technological innovation. Firm-to-firm entrusted loans, the largest part of the shadow banking sector in China, enhance the borrowers’ innovation output. The effects are more prominent when the borrowers are subject to severer financial constraints, information asymmetry, and takeover exposures. A plausible underlying channel is capital reallocations from less productive but easy-financed lender firms to more innovative but financially less-privileged borrower firms. Our paper suggests that shadow banking helps correct bank credit misallocations and thus serves as a second-best market design in financing the real economy.
  • 详情 State Ownership's Influence and the Contingent Role of Firm Size on Technological Innovation: Exploration and Exploitation in Chinese Firms
    Recent research indicates that the relationship between state ownership, firm size, and technological innovation outcomes in Chinese firms is a complex and intriguing topic. However, we propose a new perspective based on institutional complexity and examine the combined effects of these two factors. By considering the interplay between the economic efficiency rationale and the institutional logic associated with state ownership and firm size within the context of Chinese firms, we argue that the effects of state ownership and firm size can counterbalance each other. In order to test our hypotheses, we analyze a sample of 385 publicly listed firms spanning the period from 2015 to 2019. The findings reveal that while state ownership and firm size individually exert a negative influence on both exploratory and exploitative innovation in Chinese firms, their interaction actually yields a positive impact. This study contributes to our comprehension of how state ownership influences exploratory and exploitative innovation in the presence of competing institutional logics, as well as the contingent effect of firm size.
  • 详情 The real effects of shadow banking: evidence from China
    We provide firm-level evidence on the real effects of shadow banking in terms of technological innovation. Firm-to-firm entrusted loans, the largest part of the shadow banking sector in China, enhance the borrowers’ innovation output. The effects are more prominent when the borrowers are subject to severer financial constraints, information asymmetry, and takeover exposures. A plausible underlying channel is capital reallocations from less productive but easy-financed lender firms to more innovative but financially less-privileged borrower firms. Our paper suggests shadow banking helps correct bank credit misallocations and thus serves as a second-best market design in financing the real economy