Benefiting Others by Digital Technology:Impact of Digital Innovation Capability of Private Enterprises on the Depth and Breadth of Targeted Poverty Alleviation
This paper examines the impact of digital innovation capability of private enterprises on the depth and breadth of targeted poverty alleviation.From the perspective of resource allocation theory,digital innovation capability creates abundant reproducible,repeatable,and iterative digital resources,which break through the limitations of resource scarcity and depletability in traditional theories.Hence,private enterprises are engaged by digital innovation capability to deeply combine digital resources with the characteristics of poverty-stricken areas and people,and participate in local"blood-making"poverty alleviation,thereby further increasing the poverty alleviation depth.Meanwhile,digital innovation ability enables private enterprises to put similar digital resources into different areas,and derive different poverty alleviation methods according to divergent needs of certain areas,thereby further increasing the poverty alleviation breadth.Data are collected from multiple databases(i.e.,CSMAR,CNINFO,and Incopat),and a panel population average effect regression is conducted on the final dataset of 8 840 observations of 2 259 listed companies from 2016 to 2020.The empirical analyses prove that the digital innovation capability enhances both poverty alleviation depth and poverty alleviation breadth.In addition,the empirical results demonstrate that industrial concentration enhances the positive effect of digital innovation capability in both the depth and breadth of poverty alleviation.Political connections strengthen the positive effect of digital innovation capability on poverty alleviation depth,while lessening its positive effect on poverty alleviation breadth.Unlike previous case studies that investigated poverty alleviation of particular enterprises,this paper empirically draws an empirically-based conclusion with high generalization.Digital innovation capability promotes private enterprises to invest extensively and deeply in targeted poverty alleviation,and this paradigm enables private enterprises to implement prosocial practice as"folding a branch for the elderly"rather than"carrying Mount Tai in arms to surpass North Sea."