School of Economics, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China.
China Center for Internet Economy Research, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China.
PLoS One. 2024 May 7;19(5):e0302586. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302586. eCollection 2024.
Given the advent of the digital era, digital transformation has become necessary for enterprise development. Political connections are the most important resources for enterprise development in most countries. However, the impact of political connections on corporate digital transformation has yet to be verified. This study uses ERNIE, a large language model, to construct a measurement of corporate digital transformation from the perspective of digital technology application through a textual analysis of the annual reports of A-share privately listed companies from 2008 to 2020 and analyzes the impact of political connections on corporate digital transformation and its mechanism of action. The findings demonstrate that political connections have a significant inhibitory effect on corporate digital transformation. This conclusion still holds after a series of robustness and endogeneity tests. The mechanism analyses demonstrate that political connections primarily affect corporate digital transformation through three mechanisms: weakening risk, inhibiting innovation, and enhancing resource crowding. We theoretically expand the understanding of the economic impact of political connections and provide new ideas for accelerating enterprise digital transformation from the perspective of policy makers.
鉴于数字时代的到来，数字化转型已成为企业发展的必要条件。在大多数国家，政治关联是企业发展最重要的资源。然而，政治关联对企业数字化转型的影响尚未得到验证。本研究使用 ERNIE（一种大型语言模型），通过对 2008 年至 2020 年 A 股私营上市公司年度报告的文本分析，从数字技术应用的角度构建了企业数字化转型的衡量标准，并分析了政治关联对企业数字化转型的影响及其作用机制。研究结果表明，政治关联对企业数字化转型具有显著的抑制作用。在一系列稳健性和内生性检验后，这一结论仍然成立。机制分析表明，政治关联主要通过三种机制影响企业数字化转型：削弱风险、抑制创新和增强资源拥挤。我们从政策制定者的角度，在理论上拓展了对政治关联经济影响的认识，并为加速企业数字化转型提供了新的思路。
