Unraveling how digital transformation affects innovation capability in China’s smart manufacturing enterprises

In the digital economy, digital transformation has become a crucial driver of innovative capability in smart manufacturing businesses. This study examines the influence of digital transformation on innovation capabilities and its underlying processes within publicly traded smart manufacturing companies in China. Utilizing data from Chinese listed companies spanning 1999-2023, we construct a digital transformation index via text mining. Employing fixed-effects regression models to control for industry, year, and regional heterogeneity, and supplemented by multiple robustness strategies-including substituting the dependent variable with citation count for patent applications, lagged regression, omitted variable control, and placebo tests-we analyze the data. The findings demonstrate that digital transformation significantly enhances the innovative capacity of smart manufacturing enterprises, a result robust to rigorous testing. Additionally, mediation effect analyses indicate that digital transformation indirectly fosters innovation by alleviating financing constraints. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis reveals that this innovation effect is more pronounced in Eastern regions, non-state-owned enterprises, and technology-intensive sectors, underscoring the moderating role of regional resources, ownership structure, and technological infrastructure. This study provides micro-level empirical evidence on the role of digital transformation in advancing manufacturing innovation and offers strategic insights for policymakers regarding digital infrastructure deployment and tailored guidance for enterprise transformation.