Abstract: Under the requirements of high-quality development, to re-examine the value chain division system constructed by Chinese enterprises and its influence on corporate connotative development constitutes the main purpose of this paper. Based on China’s microcosmic enterprises survey data collected by World Bank, this paper rationally defines the value chain division and connection at the enterprise level on the one hand and scientifically constructs the corporate connotative development measurement on the other hand, then it carries out an empirical analysis. The findings show that the expansion of value chain division and upstream-and downstream-connection can both help the promotion of corporate connotation development, while the middle-stream competitive link had adverse effect. When further considering the spatial heterogeneity of value chain division expansion, the result confirms that the connotative development ability of enterprises’ expansion of division and connection at national and international level has a most prominent promotion effect. It is found through industry-classified comparison that compared with the service enterprises, the connotative development effect of the manufacturing enterprises brought about by expansion of large spatial scale division and connection is more significant, especially for the technology-intensive manufacturing enterprises. The enterprises with higher connotative development ability can get more marginal positive effect from the expansion of value chain division and connection.

Key words: value chain division, deconstruction, spatial heterogeneity, connotative development