Integration of Informatization and Industrialization and Corporate Innovation: Empirical Evidence from China

The integration of informatization and industrialization (IoII) is the convergence point of building a strong manufacturing country, a strong network country, and a digital China in the era of the digital economy. Based on the data of A-share listed manufacturing enterprises from 2007 to 2019, this paper uses text analysis to build an index reflecting the IoII degree of micro-enterprises, studies the impact of IoII on corporate innovation, and discusses the mechanism underlying this impact and the heterogeneity. The results show that first, on the whole, the IoII can significantly improve corporate innovation. This conclusion remains valid after robustness testing and instrumental variable regression. Second, the results concerning the mechanism by which IoII impacts corporate innovation show that IoII improves corporate innovation by alleviating financing constraints and raising human capital levels. Third, the beneficial effect of the IoII on corporate innovation is more obvious in enterprises in traditional industries, state-owned enterprises, large-scale enterprises, and enterprises in areas with poor institutional environments. This study provides new empirical evidence for accelerating the enterprise IoII in the new era to improve innovation capability.