Abstract: Based on the firm-level data of Chinese listed companies from 2001-2021, this paper brings the specialized division of labor into the enterprise digital transformation and the total factor energy efficiency to conduct an empirical study. The findings show that, firstly, enterprise digital transformation can improve the total factor energy efficiency of enterprises, and this conclusion still holds after a series of robustness tests; secondly, digital transformation has a more significant promotion effect on the total factor energy efficiency of state-owned enterprises compared with private enterprises; thirdly, compared with the enterprises with lower level of internal control, digital transformation has much more significant promotion effect on the total-factor energy efficiency of the enterprises with the internal control level at the top 25%. In addition, the mechanism analysis reveals that enterprise digital transformation can further promote the improvement of the energy efficiency of enterprises by improving the level of specialized division of labor. The above conclusions suggest that in order to promote the realization of the“double carbon”goal, the government should actively implement various policies, vigorously promote the digital transformation of enterprises, and give full play to the guiding function of financial funds. At the same time, it should encourage enterprises to strengthen the applications of digital technology in the links of production, operation and so on, and encourage the enterprises to enhance the synergy and innovation with the leading enterprises in the industry, so as to improve the specialized capacity and the specialized level of their own.

Key words: digital transformation of enterprises, total-factor energy efficiency of enterprises, specialized division of labor