Research On The Impact Of Digital Technology Applications On Chinese Manufacturing Enterprises’ Outward Foreign Direct Investment

As the main way for enterprises to internationalize,outward foreign direct investment(OFDI)is an important strategic choice for enterprises to integrate domestic and foreign resources,expand market space,and enhance competitive advantages.As the world economy enters a downturn,the intensification of "anti-globalization" and geopolitical conflicts has made OFDI for Chinese enterprises more difficult and risky.The booming digital technology and digital economy inject new momentum into the sustained development of enterprise internationalization.Currently,China’s digital economy’s outward investment cooperation is expanding from "digital outbound" to "outbound digital".It is worth exploring whether and how the digital technology applications can affect the outward foreign direct investment development of traditional manufacturing enterprises.This article intends to conduct systematic theoretical and empirical research on this issue,and propose countermeasures and suggestions to promote OFDI in China’s manufacturing industry in the digital economy era.This article applies theories such as market internalization,international production compromise,enterprise heterogeneity,and dynamic capabilities to analyze the impact of digital technology applications on enterprises’ outward direct investment decisions.It explores its mechanism of action from the perspectives of enterprise productivity and innovation ability.To examine the impact of digital technology application on the growth path of enterprise OFDI,this article further explores the relationship between digital technology application and the breadth and depth margins of enterprise OFDI.On the basis of theoretical analysis,this article uses text analysis to examine the application of digital technology in manufacturing enterprises.The results show that the degree of digital technology application in Chinese manufacturing enterprises has steadily increased between 2010 and 2020,and backend scenario applications are of utmost importance.At the same time,it presents the characteristics of large-scale,eastern regions,and technologyintensive enterprise with higher levels of digital technology application.On the basis of theoretical analysis and current situation investigation,this paper based on the data of 1470 Chinese manufacturing listed companies from 2010 to 2020,uses the word frequency inverse text frequency method to measure the application level of digital technology in enterprises,and uses the panel data model method to test the theoretical model.The results show that:(1)The digital technology applications significantly promote the OFDI decision-making of Chinese manufacturing enterprises,and this conclusion is still valid after considering a variety of robustness tests and endogenous issues;(2)Heterogeneity analysis shows that compared to large-scale enterprises,labor-intensive industries,and regions with lower levels of marketization,the OFDI promotion effect of digital technology applications is more significant in small and medium-sized enterprises,capital and technology intensive industries,and regions with higher levels of marketization;(3)Mechanism analysis shows that the digital technology applications can promote OFDI in enterprises through productivity improvement and innovation capability enhancement effects;(4)From the perspective of OFDI binary margins,the promoting effect of digital technology applications is mainly reflected in the expansion of OFDI breadth margin,and the impact on depth margin is not significant;(5)Further testing from different digital technology application scenarios shows that the back-end digital technology applications encourages enterprises to expand more in breadth rather than depth,while the front-end applications have a promoting effect on both the breadth and depth margins of enterprise OFDI.Based on this,this article suggests that Chinese manufacturing enterprises should seize the opportunities brought by the development of digital technology,establish and deepen international relations networks,promote the connection and integration of internal and external resources,timely identify and grasp dynamic and complex international market opportunities,and better implement the "going global" development strategy.