Research on the impact of digital transformation on the production efficiency of manufacturing enterprises: Institution-based analysis of the threshold effect

Digital transformation is the core strategic orientation in the digital economy era and is evolving into a pivotal competitive advantage among countries, industries and enterprises. Based on the analysis of its mechanism, this paper focuses on the data of A-share listed manufacturing enterprises in China from 2011 to 2021; measures and analyses the variables relating to the impact of digital transformation on the production efficiency of manufacturing enterprises; and conducts empirical tests. The research shows that digital transformation plays a significant role in promoting the production efficiency of manufacturing enterprises, and the promotion effect is more obvious for high-tech enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises than for non-high-tech enterprises and state-owned enterprises; digital transformation has a greater promotional effect on the production efficiency of manufacturing enterprises with formal institutions or informal institutions switching from low value intervals to high value intervals. Accordingly, this paper proposes accelerating the digital transformation process of manufacturing enterprises and adopting targeted policies in accordance with the principle of resource endowment. Moreover, from the perspective of institutional environment optimization in digital transformation, this paper proposes building a proper formal institutional environment and strengthening the construction of informal institutions. Our study provides new ideas for constructing enterprise digital transformation indicators. We also offer new insights into the different institutional levels of the effect of digital transformation.