The “From Point to Area” Effect of Leading Enterprises’ Digital Transformation on Entrepreneurship: Evidence from China’s Lighthouse Factories

The role of externalities generated by enterprise digital transformation in advancing SDGs 8 and 9 has been largely overlooked in existing research. Taking Lighthouse Factory certification (LFC) as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper uses China’s county-level panel data from 2016 to 2023 and adopts the DID model to investigate the impact of leading enterprises’ digital transformation on regional digital entrepreneurship (RDE). The findings show that LFC promotes RDE by facilitating digital technology transfer, deepening digital technology cooperation, accelerating digital knowledge accumulation, and enhancing local digital industrial competitiveness. Moreover, this effect is more pronounced in regions with stricter environmental regulations and a stronger green transformation climate, yet is less constrained by local digital infrastructure. Interestingly, LFC exerts positive spillover effects on surrounding cities within 50–150 km and those beyond 250 km, whereas it exerts a significant siphon effect on cities within 50 km. Furthermore, LFC generates network spillovers among economically connected cities through regional digital technology transfer and cooperation networks. This paper provides empirical evidence for leveraging the demonstration effect of leading enterprises to promote the coordinated implementation of SDG 8, SDG 9, SDG 10, SDG 12 and SDG 13.