From digital transformation to corporate R&D innovation investment: largest shareholder ownership and data asset information disclosure as parallel boundary conditions

Digital transformation is associated with greater R&D investment, but the ownership and disclosure conditions surrounding this relationship remain less clear. This study examines largest shareholder ownership and data asset information disclosure as two distinct moderators, using 35,954 firm-year observations from 4,388 Chinese A-share listed firms over 2009–2024. Firm and year fixed-effects models show a positive association between digital transformation and R&D innovation investment. In the baseline model, this association is stronger when the largest shareholder holds a greater equity stake and firms disclose more information about their data assets. The positive association between digital transformation and R&D investment persists across alternative measures and lagged specifications, whereas the moderation findings are more sensitive to model specification and sample restrictions. The ownership interaction weakens under stricter fixed effects, and neither interaction is statistically significant in the dynamic specification that includes lagged R&D investment. Instrumental-variable estimates are positive but imprecise and do not establish causality. These findings place ownership structure and data-related disclosure alongside technological change in explaining firms’ R&D commitments. They support a conditional account of the digital transformation–R&D relationship, while leaving the underlying monitoring and financing mechanisms open to further investigation.