How Does the Peer Effect of Digital Transformation Promote Breakthrough Innovation?

As the digital age advances, digital transformation has emerged as a pivotal driver enabling enterprises to strengthen their competitive advantage. Although scholarly attention to the role of digital transformation in corporate innovation has grown markedly in recent years, the peer effect of digital transformation—i.e., how firms’ digital transformation efforts influence one another—and its implications for breakthrough innovation remain underexplored. Drawing on quantitative data from Chinese A-share listed manufacturing firms over the period 2008–2023, this study empirically examines the impact of the peer effect of digital transformation on breakthrough innovation, the underlying mechanisms, and its boundary conditions. Our findings indicate that the peer effect of digital transformation significantly promotes breakthrough innovation. This positive effect is attenuated when organizational slack is high but amplified under conditions of intense market competition. Mechanism analysis reveals that the peer effect of digital transformation alleviates financing constraints, thereby facilitating breakthrough innovation. Heterogeneity analysis further shows that the peer effect of digital transformation has a more significant impact in promoting breakthrough innovation among non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) and among firms headquartered in China’s midwestern regions.