Zhu Zhuohui, Ning Shuying
Central-South Architectural Design Institute Co., Ltd., Wuhan 430000, China.
School of Economics and Management, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan 430000, China.
Heliyon. 2023 Jul 1;9(7):e17879. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e17879. eCollection 2023 Jul.
Along with industrial revolution and upgrading technologies, all industries are changing their tradition ways of operation and management. However, the expanding construction industry is way behind this technological transformation. Traditional ways of design and operation have become obstacles in its transforming process. Construction industry has played indispensable role in China's economic growth for past decades, but now it should advance with the times. Recently, industrial enterprises have begun to adopt new concepts like digital construction and parametric design. But there still lacks evaluation on effectiveness of digital reform on construction enterprises. Therefore, this paper takes advantage of 2007-2018 panel data of construction industry in China, applies textual analysis to measure digital reform, and empirically testifies the effect of digital reform on strategic investments of construction enterprises. Results show that digital reform significantly increases corporate strategic investments, including R&D inputs and innovation outputs. This paper also discloses vital mechanism behind, namely, management foresight. Besides, we show that effect is stronger in districts with healthier relationships between enterprises and local governments. Corporate competence and future potential are also strengthened consequently. This paper provides empirical evidence about effect of digital reform on construction industry, and points out a possible direction for further industrial reform.
随着工业革命和技术升级，所有行业都在改变其传统的运营和管理方式。然而，不断扩张的建筑业在这场技术变革中却远远落后。传统的设计和运营方式已成为其转型过程中的障碍。在过去几十年里，建筑业在中国经济增长中发挥了不可或缺的作用，但现在它应该与时俱进。最近，工业企业已开始采用数字建造和参数化设计等新概念。但目前仍缺乏对建筑企业数字化改革成效的评估。因此，本文利用2007 - 2018年中国建筑业的面板数据，运用文本分析法来衡量数字化改革，并实证检验数字化改革对建筑企业战略投资的影响。结果表明，数字化改革显著增加了企业的战略投资，包括研发投入和创新产出。本文还揭示了其背后的关键机制，即管理前瞻性。此外，我们发现，在企业与地方政府关系更健康的地区，这种影响更强。企业竞争力和未来潜力也因此得到增强。本文为数字化改革对建筑业的影响提供了实证证据，并指出了进一步产业改革的可能方向。
