The Impact of Digital Leadership on Innovation Performance of Listed Companies in the High-End Manufacturing Industry
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53469/ijomsr.2025.08(11).01Keywords:
Digital Leadership, High-End Manufacturing, Innovation Performance, Digital Transformation Capability, Empirical StudyAbstract
As digital technology becomes deeply integrated with the manufacturing sector, high-end manufacturing — regarded as the core vehicle of a nation’s industrial competitiveness—is confronted with an urgent requirement to enhance innovation performance via digital transformation. Digital leadership, serving as a critical driver that guides enterprises in adapting to digital changes, has yet to be systematically investigated in terms of its mechanism of influence on innovation performance. Drawing on the Resource-Based View (RBV) and Dynamic Capability Theory, this study takes 238 listed companies operating in China’s high-end manufacturing industry from 2018 to 2022 as its research sample. It conducts an empirical analysis of the relationship between digital leadership and innovation performance, while also investigating the mediating effect of digital transformation capability. The findings reveal that: (1) Digital leadership exerts a significantly positive influence on the innovation performance of listed high-end manufacturing enterprises (). (2) Digital transformation capability plays a partial mediating role between digital leadership and innovation performance, where the mediating effect accounts for 28.6%. (3) Firm size and R&D intensity both exert a positive moderating effect on the relationship between digital leadership and innovation performance. Overall, this study enriches the theoretical studies regarding digital leadership and innovation performance, and offers practical insights for high-end manufacturing enterprises seeking to improve innovation efficiency by strengthening their digital leadership.
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