Research On The Impact Mechanism Of Digital Technology Capability On Innovation Performance And Market Value For Synthetic Biology Enterprises

As a typical type of future industry,synthetic biology is a technology that standardizes,decouples and modularizes existing natural biological components which transforms biological systems.Its research and development deeply integrate biotechnology and digital technology,and lead the development of the synthetic biology industry and new market through technological breakthroughs.However,the research and development of synthetic biology technology are currently facing many difficulties and challenges,e.g.,some enterprises find it difficult to improve their innovation performance and market value after making a large amount of capital investment.The key problems include:(1)Many biotechnology enterprises are still unclear about the innovation mechanism of synthetic biology with the form of "biotechnology + digital technology",which leads to difficulties in technological transformation;(2)Market investors are unable to identify the potential and investment value of synthetic biology enterprises through explicit indicators,so they are not inclined to make synthetic biology-related investments,resulting in a limited increase in the market value of listed enterprises.To solve the above two problems,this study investigated the impact mechanisms of digital technology capability on innovation performance and market value for synthetic biology enterprises.First,based on dynamic capability theory and digital technology capability theory,we constructed a theoretical model from the perspective of digital technology capability of firms and proposed 10 important hypotheses.Second,we collected data on patents,employee skills,and financial situation of 154 biotechnology enterprises which conducted synthetic biology R&D.Furthermore,we analyzed the technology resource base of enterprises through LDA and word2 vec.The results show that:(1)The digital technology capability of enterprises and the resource applicability of developing synthetic biotechnology can promote the innovation of synthetic biotechnology.(2)Digital technology capability strengthens the positive relationship between the resource applicability of synthetic biotechnology and synthetic biotechnology innovation by improving the efficiency of data search,information transmission and knowledge integration.(3)In order to further clarify the factors affecting the market value of synthetic biology enterprises,we find that the impacts of digital technology capability at the data level and information level on enterprise market value are significantly positive,but the impact of digital technology capability at the knowledge level is negative due to the long-term and complexity of knowledge creation process.Finally,the findings are fully discussed,and this study enriches the theoretical mechanism of capital market support for innovation in synthetic biology industry,which would support synthetic biology industry development policies and corporate management practices.The limitations and future research directions are also discussed in the end.