How Does Digital Transformation Facilitate High-Level“Going Global”of Chinese Enterprises

Abstract

Abstract: With the development of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, the deep integration between digital technologies and the real economy will become a new driving force for enterprises to“go global”at a high level. Based on the data of Chinese listed companies, this paper conducts an empirical examination of the impact of digital transformation on China’s corporate outward foreign direct investment and the underlying mechanisms. The results show that digital transformation has significantly increased the probability, frequency and scale of cross-border investment of enterprises, and this effect is mainly reflected in the green field investments. The mechanism tests show that digital transformation mainly provides important support for enterprises to“go global”by alleviating financing constraints, enhancing innovation capabilities, and improving social responsibility performance. The heterogeneity analysis reveals that the investment promotion effect of digital transformation is stronger in such enterprises as the non-state-owned enterprises, enterprises with export experience, and enterprises with higher human capital levels. At the same time, this promotion effect is also more significant in the heavily polluting industries, the high-tech industries, the industries relying more on external financing, and in the regions where the institutional environment is better. In addition, digital transformation helps enterprises overcome the liability of foreignness and invest in countries and regions with better institutions, which can ensures the high-standard“going global”of enterprises. Based on the above results, the government should provide a good regional institutional environment and talent introduction policy for enterprises’ digital transformation, and fully unleash the role of digital transformation in promoting high-level“going out”of enterprises. In addition, it is also necessary to consider the differences in the impact of digital transformation on different enterprises, so as to effectively achieve a high level of opening up to the outside world.

Key words: digital transformation, outward foreign direct investment, financing constraints, innovation capacity, corporate social responsibility

CLC Number:

F275
F832.51

WEI Yun-yan, LIU Chun, SHI Bing-zhan, ZHANG Yi. How Does Digital Transformation Facilitate High-Level“Going Global”of Chinese Enterprises[J]. Contemporary Finance & Economics, 2024, 0(6): 111-123.

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