| The problems of large-scale manufacturing enterprises applying information technology such as big data and cloud computing have gradually attracted widespread attention from the academic and business communities.The manufacturing industry is the foundation of a strong country.With the background of the new era,the road to transforming and upgrading of China’s manufacturing enterprises needs to be broken.As a leading representative of China,large-scale manufacturing enterprises have strong resources and mature systems,which provide inexhaustible driving force for the development of manufacturing industry.Therefore,in order to lead the flourishing development of China’s manufacturing industry better,large-scale manufacturing enterprises need to accelerate the integration of new generation information technologies such as cloud computing and big data,which can promote new transforming and upgrading.However,the research on large-scale manufacturing enterprises applying to information technology and using it to improve enterprise performance has not been fully explored.In addition,in an uncertain environment,how enterprises use strategic flexibility to gain competitive advantage is also a key issue for scholars.Although the overall strength of China’s manufacturing industry continues to strengthen,compared with the world’s manufacturing powers such as the United States and Japan,there is still a big gap.Problems such as how to speed up the planning of a new layout and use the new generation of information technology to strengthen strategic flexibility and then promote transforming and upgrading and how to improve enterprise performance need to be resolved.So how the digital empowerment apply strategic flexibility and effectively improve enterprise performance requires further exploration and verification.Based on the basic problem of researching the relationship between digital empowerment and large manufacturing enterprise performance,this paper redefines the digital empowerment from the perspective of capability,and divides digital empowerment into connect capability,intelligence capability,and analytic capability.Based on a large number of existing literatures and related research,nine items of measuring digital empowerment are designed and modified several times to empirically test the relevant models of digital empowerment.At the same time,through the literature research and normative analysis,with the strategic flexibility as the mediator and the corporate social capital as the adjustment variable,this paper constructs the relationship model between digital empowerment,strategic flexibility,corporate social capital and enterprise performance.We use 155 large-scale manufacturing enterprises as research objects and test the specific mechanism of the relationship model,which can effectively enrich and expand the research in the field of digital empowerment,and guide the direction of the future research.This study finds the positive impact of digital empowerment on enterprise performance in large manufacturing firms and the driving role of strategic flexibility in the middle.Besides,high corporate social capital plays a positive role in regulating the relationship between digital empowerment and strategic flexibility.As a leader in the manufacturing industry,large-scale manufacturing enterprises should make use of new generation information technologies such as big data and cloud computing and grasp the positive effects of digital empowerment on strategic flexibility and enterprise performance,while focusing on balancing corporate social capital,thereby effectively promoting the transforming and upgrading of manufacturing industry,which will seek greater benefits for enterprises. |
