Abstract: In recent years, the prevalence of counter-globalization and conservatism, coupled with the gradual tightening of foreign investment scrutiny in various countries, has led to a decline in China's OFDI. Therefore, exploring new opportunities for OFDI in China and tapping the potential advantages of enterprises' outbound investment are not only of practical significance to accelerate the pace of high-quality opening up, but also have an important impact on the smooth development of “dual circulation”. Along with the in-depth development of the fourth wave of technological revolution, the digital economy is becoming a new engine of economic growth for all countries. In this context, the Ministry of Commerce of China issued “Guidelines of Cooperation in Digital Economy for Investment in Foreign Countries” in 2021 jointly with three other departments. The digital transformation provides new opportunities for enterprises to “go abroad”.
Based on the above analysis, this paper uses the digital transformation intensity data and OFDI data of listed enterprises from 2000 to 2020 to empirically study the impact of digital transformation on firms' OFDI. The empirical result shows that enterprises' digital transformation can effectively promote the growth of OFDI. Mechanism analysis shows that improving enterprises' productivity and enhancing enterprises' innovation capability are two important mechanisms for digital transformation to affect enterprises' OFDI. Further analysis finds that enterprises with high labor intensity, small or medium size and weak government-enterprise relations, as well as enterprises located in areas with poor financial technology environment and poor market environment, benefit more from the digital transformation. The conclusions indicate that the digital transformation can not only compensate for some disadvantages of enterprises in OFDI, but also help enterprises to break through the constraints of regional development environment.
The research of this paper has certain policy significance. Firstly, it is becoming the new leading tendency for digitalized enterprises to invest across the countries. Enterprises must gain new developing power through digital transformation to establish competitive advantages in complicated and ever-changing international market competition. Enterprises need to implement the digital transformation strategy as soon as possible and narrow the digital gap with other enterprises, so as to improve their competitiveness. Secondly, it is important to pay attention to the late-mover advantages brought about by the digital economy. The world is promoting a new wave of technological revolution based on digital technology. Only by utilizing the late-mover advantages brought about by the digital economy can we find a new growth point for China's OFDI and explore new opportunities for overseas investment. Thirdly, the “last mile” problem of digital transformation is not only a matter of enterprises' own development, but also requires the attention from local governments to improve the soft environment where enterprises are located. Regions need to further improve local financial technology construction and promote the precise connection between financial technology and real enterprises.

Key words: Digital Transformation, Outward Foreign Direct Investment, Productivity, Innovation Capability

摘要： 区别于以往研究多从传统视角考察对外直接投资驱动因素,本文立足于数字经济这一新型经济形态,从企业数字化转型这一新视角探讨对外直接投资驱动力,并基于上市企业2000—2020年数字化转型强度和OFDI数据,实证检验数字化转型对企业OFDI的影响及其内在机理。研究结果表明,企业数字化转型有效促进了OFDI增长,提升企业生产率和增强企业创新能力是数字化转型作用于企业OFDI的两个重要途径。进一步分析发现,劳动密集型、中小规模及弱政企关系的企业受益更大,位于金融科技环境和市场环境较弱地区的企业受益也更明显。这一系列结论说明数字化转型不仅弥补企业在OFDI中的部分劣势,还助力企业突破地区发展环境的限制。本文为探寻企业海外投资新契机给予新的思路,并为理解数字化转型的作用效果提供相关证据。

关键词: 数字化转型, 对外直接投资, 生产率, 创新能力