Research On The Influence Of Inter-firm Network On Digital Transformation Behavior Diffusion

In the era of digital economy,the new generation of digital technologies such as big data,AI and cloud computing are developing vigorously.To speed up the digital transformation of traditional industries has become an important driving force to promote China’s economic optimization and upgrading.At the beginning of 2020,the outbreak of Covid-19 has catalysed the demand of enterprises for digital technology.At the present stage,China’s industrial digitization process lags behind the development of digital industrialization.How to speed up the digital transformation of enterprises has become a practical problem.Digital transformation is a process in which an enterprise makes strategic responses to the disruptions of external environment by using digital technologies and improve an entity by triggering significant changes.The internal mechanism of promoting enterprise digital transformation and upgrading lies in the adoption and use of digital technologies.However,there are few researches exploring digital transformation from the perspective of the strategic responses to digital technology.In addition to the individual strategic responses,the diffusion of digital transformation behavior may also be influenced by inter-firm networks due to their embedding into specific inter-firm networks.As an important form of inter-firm network,interlocking directorates has been proved to play an important role in promoting the diffusion of firm’s behavior and practice.However,the influence of interlocking d directorates on the diffusion of digital transformation behavior has not been studied.This paper discusses the influence of interlocking directorates on the decision-making of enterprise digital transformation from the perspective of the diffusion of innovations and the strategic responses of enterprise to new technology.Based on the strategic response model of new technology,this paper compares the response speed,response magnitude and response domain of the listed companies in the financial and commercial industries,identifying the behavioral factors that influence the digital transformation of enterprises.In addition,the diffusion process of digital transformation is analyzed based on the diffusion micro-network model,and the diffusion trend of digital technology adoption and digital transformation is predicted based on the BASS macrodiffusion model.The research shows that the response magnitude of enterprises to digital technology is the key factor that influences their decision-making of digital transformation;If the central enterprise in the network takes the lead in responding to DTS,it will help to accelerate the early diffusion of digital transformation strategies.It is of theoretical and practical significance to understand the behavior and process of enterprise digital transformation so as to provide countermeasures and suggestions for the policy-making of industrial digital transformation.