1. Research content
This paper uses machine learning methods to describe the digitalization level of micro enterprises, and empirically investigates the impact of enterprise digital transformation on enterprise division of labor and its mechanism on the basis of constructing a mathematical model. The results show that the digital transformation of enterprises has significantly improved the specialization level of Chinese listed companies. The mechanism analysis shows that the promotion of digital transformation to the specialization of enterprises is mainly realized by reducing the external transaction costs faced by enterprises. Moreover, the impact of digital transformation on enterprise specialization has obvious heterogeneity.
2. Model construction
In this paper, A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2018 were used as the initial research sample, and screening, tailing processing and cluster adjustment were carried out. Aiming at the relationship between enterprise digital transformation, external transaction cost, internal control cost and enterprise boundary, the following econometric model is constructed:
3. Analysis of empirical results
(1) Benchmark regression
The table below reports the benchmark regression results:
The results show that the promotion of enterprise digitalization does help to improve the specialization of labor. Overall, the reduction effect of enterprise digital transformation on external transaction costs is more obvious than that on internal control costs.
(2) Endogenous problems
This study may face two endogeneity problems:
1. The improvement of the degree of digitization will improve the trading environment of enterprises and promote the improvement of the professional division of labor of enterprises;
2. Enterprises with a higher level of specialization may also have higher demands to promote high-level digitalization.
In view of the above problems, this paper uses the instrumental variable method to test. Select the post and telecommunications data of each city in 1984 as the instrumental variable of enterprise digitalization; select the cross product of the number of Internet users in the country with a lag of one period and the number of fixed telephones per 10,000 people in prefecture-level cities in 1984 as the instrumental variable of the degree of enterprise digitization in the current period; The Internet penetration rate of each province during 2001-2009 was selected as an instrumental variable, and the results are shown in the table below.
The regression results of the second stage of the instrumental variable method show that the research results of this paper are still valid.
(3) Robustness test
1. Changing the measure of firm specialization
The results show that when the external transaction costs faced by enterprises are high, the improvement of digitalization level is more important in reducing external transaction costs, which is finally reflected in the fact that digitalization has a more significant role in promoting the specialization of enterprises. It reflects that the reduction of external transaction costs is the mechanism channel for digitalization to promote the specialization of enterprises.
1. The impact of internal control costs
(1) Proportion of management expenses L_MgtCost;
The overall results show that when the internal control cost of the enterprise is low, the improvement of the digitalization level has little room for reducing the internal control cost. At this time, the effect of reducing the external transaction cost is more obvious, which is reflected in the role of digitalization in promoting the professionalization of enterprises. It is more significant when the cost of internal control is low. Digitization will indeed affect the boundaries of enterprises by simultaneously acting on the two logics of external transaction costs and internal control costs.
2. The influence of industry characteristics
(1) Manufacturing and service industries
(2) Competitive industry and regulated industry
This paper uses the stepwise regression method to test whether digitalization can improve enterprise productivity by promoting enterprise division of labor. The results show that digitalization has significantly promoted the improvement of enterprise total factor productivity, and the level of specialization has played a part in the process of digitalization improving enterprise production efficiency. Mediation effect. The main conclusion of this paper finds that the role of digitalization in promoting the specialization of enterprises can further improve the production efficiency of enterprises.
1. Data source : self-organization
3. Regional scope : A-share listed companies
The samples were screened according to the following principles: ①Exclude financial industry samples; ②Exclude ST, PT and insolvent samples; ③Exclude samples with missing relevant variables.
See comments for relevant data
| department subvariable definition |
|
| stkcd |
Securities code |
| year |
years |
| province |
Parent company province |
| city |
Parent company city |
| ind |
industry code |
| EVERYONE |
Enterprise specialization |
| tot_words |
Frequency of Digitization Related Words |
| digital |
Degree of enterprise digitization |
| size |
Enterprise size |
| lev |
Assets and liabilities |
| cash |
cash holdings |
| soe |
Nature of property rights |
| long |
return on total assets |
| mb |
market value book ratio |
| capital |
capital intensity |
| subs |
Number of subsidiaries |
| market |
degree of marketization |
| gdp |
The level of economic development |
| internet |
internet penetration |
| iv1 |
Number of Internet users nationwide in the previous year *Number of fixed telephones per 10,000 people in prefecture-level cities in 1984 |
| iv2 |
Internet penetration rate in each province from 2001 to 2009 |
| broadband |
"Broadband China" dummy variable |
| digital1 |
cloud computing |
| digital2 |
the Internet |
| digital3 |
artificial intelligence |
| digital4 |
Big Data |
| digital5 |
internet of things |
| ind_adj |
ind_adj |
| saction |
Had a penalty of 1 during the sample period |
| IE |
Shenzhen Stock Exchange Information Quality Evaluation Results (1 excellent 2 good 3 pass 4 fail) |
| IA |
Intangible Assets/Total Assets |
| contract |
Industry contract intensity |
| MgtCost |
管理费用/营业收入 |
| Perk |
在职消费/营业收入 |
| Growth |
销售收入增长率 |
| tfp |
全要素生产率 |
| digital_num |
ln(词频+1） |
| ppe |
固定资产密集度 |
| Shrcr1 |
第一大股东持股比例 |
| GHDum |
高管是否持股 |
| wage |
高管薪酬 |
| list_age |
上市时间 |