Going Out of the"Comfort Zone"in Product:Enterprise Digitization and Export Product Switching
Product switching is not only a rational strategy for export enterprises to deal with external market shocks but also an important guarantee for achieving the goals of stabilizing the scale and optimizing the structure of foreign trade.This is particularly critical for China,which is transitioning from traditional to new growth drivers.Multi-product export enterprises are crucial for stabilizing and innovating trade development,as their capacity for product switching and the direction of their transformation directly impact trade structure optimization and quality enhancement.Moreover,the deep integration of digital technologies has revolutionized trade interactions,steering trade towards paperless,virtual,and digital forms,which accelerates changes in production methods,business models,and resource endowments,thereby altering both the internal and external environments that export enterprises encounter and reshaping their product switching and upgrading capabilities.Despite this,existing research has yet to fully address these dynamics.In this context,this study focuses on export enterprises in China from 2011 to 2016 and constructs measurement indicators for digitalization from both hardware and software digital input perspectives.The study aims to reveal the effects and underlying mechanisms of digitalization on the product switching tendencies and strategies of export enterprises.Additionally,it explores how product switching induced by digitalization reshapes the evolution direction of export products.The data used in this study is primarily from the National Tax Survey Database and Customs Database.The main findings are as follows:① Digitalization significantly increases the propensity of export enterprises to switch products.Among three product switching strategies,digitalization drives enterprises to introduce new products while phasing out old ones,which ultimately leads to an expansion in the variety of export products.② Mechanism analysis reveals that digitalization enhances enterprises'product switching capabilities through improvement at the production level(such as innovation and productivity optimization)and the transaction level(such as reduced export information costs).However,these three mechanisms have varying effects on transformation models and the range of export products.③ In terms of the product switching direction,digitalization facilitates a shift towards higher product differentiation,increased technology intensity,and lower substitutability,thus promoting the upgrading of export product structures.④ Detailed analysis of digital input types shows that investment in digital hardware is more effective in boosting product switching tendencies.In contrast,investment in digital software is more influential in increasing the technology intensity and differentiation of export products while decreasing their substitutability.Additionally,the impact of ICT products is greater than that of robotic equipment and the benefits of postal and telecommunications services exceed those of information technology services.⑤ The results differentiated by trade method indicate that digitalization more significantly facilitates the evolution of export products in general trade enterprises towards higher technology intensity and lower substitution elasticity.This study enhances the understanding of how digitalization helps enterprises escape the"low-end trap"by clarifying the logical chain of this process.It highlights the role of digitalization as both a"stabilizer"and an"accelerator"in achieving the goals of stabilizing and improving the quality of import and export activities.The findings provide theoretical insights for ensuring the stable and healthy development of China's foreign trade and offer a new perspective and additional reference for more scientifically and objectively assessing enterprise digitalization.
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
