Digital Transformation and Allocation of Decision Rights in Business Groups
The allocation of decision rights holds significant implications for the survival and development of business groups.In the digital era,the digital transformation of business groups will profoundly alter the pattern of decision rights allocation.This paper proposes a model and empirically examines the impact of digital transformation on decision rights allocation within business groups.We develop a principal-agent model to analyze the influence of digital transformation on decision rights within business groups.In the model,the parent company acts as the principal,determining the allocation of decision-making,while the subsidiary acts as the agent responsible for productive inputs throughout the project.Compared to the subsidiary,the parent company exhibits greater risk aversion.Therefore,allocating decision rights to the parent company would result in efficient decisions but insufficient incentives for the subsidiary.Conversely,allocating decision rights to the subsidiary would provide efficient incentives but may lead to inefficient decisions.We posit that the impact of digital transformation on decision rights within business groups is mediated by uncertainty and relative information costs:digital transformation provides business groups with more information and enhances their ability to process and analyze information,thereby reducing uncertainty and prompting them to allocate decision rights to the subsidiary.Furthermore,the empowering effect of digital transformation is asymmetric,with a greater empowerment for the subsidiary compared to the parent company,resulting in lower information costs for subsidiary decision-making and thus driving business groups to allocate decision rights more to the subsidiary.Based on the model,we use data from A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2021 to validate its inference.The baseline results indicate that digital transformation significantly reduces the concentration of decision rights within business groups,prompting its transfer to subsidiaries.After conducting endogeneity and robustness tests using various methods such as instrumental variables,difference-in-differences(DID),and propensity score matching(PSM),the conclusion that"digital transformation reduces the concentration of decision rights within business groups"remains valid.Further mechanism analysis indicates that digital transformation promotes the transfer of decision rights to subsidiaries through two channels:by reducing uncertainty faced by business groups and lowering the relative information costs between subsidiaries and the parent company.In the heterogeneity analysis,we find that the decentralization effect facilitated by digital transformation is more pronounced in privately-owned business groups with fewer subsidiaries and lighter business volumes.Compared with existing literature,this paper contributes in the following aspects:Firstly,at the theoretical level,by introducing uncertainty and relative information costs,it discusses the specific mechanism through which digital transformation affects decision rights allocation within business groups,thereby extending the existing research on digital transformation.Secondly,at the empirical level,based on data from Chinese A-share listed companies,it validates the viewpoint that information technology drives the decentralization of decision rights,enriching the relevant research on organizational authority.
digital transformationallocation of decision rightsuncertaintyrelative information cost
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