Research On The Impact Of Digital Cross-border M&A On China’s Manufacturing Servitization

With the continuous innovation and rapid development of digital technology,the increasing demand for digital products and digital services has given rise to a boom in digital economy investment,and digital cross-border M&A has maintained strong growth,becoming a new driving force for economic growth in various countries.At the same time,in the context of large-scale ’ going out ’,although China is a big manufacturing country,the real economy has been facing the outstanding problem of "big but not strong",and the global market demand and competitive environment are changing,the international competitiveness of China’s traditional manufacturing industry is insufficient,and the comparative advantage is being weakened,which makes the transformation of manufacturing services urgent.In Made in China 2025,it is proposed that the transformation of enterprises can rely on service-oriented manufacturing as a new research direction.The development of digital cross-border M & A provides digital technology and service resources for enterprise servitization transformation,which can effectively reduce the production cost of enterprises,optimize internal resource allocation,reconstruct industrial chain,improve operational efficiency,and promote the development of service-oriented manufacturing.Through digital cross-border M&A,enterprises can improve their own digitalization and thus improve the quality of their services,promoting the deep convergence of manufacturing and service industries.This paper focuses on two core questions: First,can digital cross-border M&A improve the servitization of manufacturing? Secondly,what is the role of R&D investment in the relationship between digital M&A and manufacturing servitization?To this end,this paper defines the concepts of digital cross-border M&A and manufacturing servitization,and based on the smiling curve theory,competitive advantage theory,internalization theory and resource-based view theory,it conducts an empirical analysis of relevant data from A-share listed manufacturing enterprises,spanning from 2011-2021,and draws the following conclusions: First,this paper uses OLS,random effects model,and fixed effects model respectively to The results all show that digital cross-border M&A can significantly enhance the level of service orientation in manufacturing;at the same time,the performance of enterprises in the industry,the size of enterprises,and the growth rate of gross operating income all have a significant effect on the enhancement of the level of service orientation in manufacturing.This is because the increasing of digital cross-border M&A of enterprises within the manufacturing industry facilitates enterprises to absorb a large amount of overseas digital technology and digital services to a certain extent,which effectively reduces production and service costs,and enterprises can provide more types of value-added services,which improves production and service efficiency and optimizes resource allocation of enterprises,thus improving the servitization level of enterprises within the manufacturing industry.Second,this paper adds R&D investment as a regulating variable for its regression analysis,and the empirical research results show that the parameter of R&D investment is dramatically negative at the 1% level,indicating that R&D investment plays a negative moderating role in the relationship between digital cross-border M&A and manufacturing servitization.This is because manufacturing enterprises need to make a series of preliminary preparations in the early stage of digital cross-border M&A,which require a large amount of capital and human investment.For technology-intensive enterprises,they will inevitably invest a large amount of R&D costs,and these investments may cause disruptions to the internal balance of manufacturing enterprises due to the long technological innovation cycle,high failure rate and uncertainty of returns.When the incoming enterprises continue large-scale R&D,they may not be able to balance internal funds and affect the development process of servitization.Based on the above findings,,this paper proposes that manufacturing corporations should consolidate their own technological development,prepare for digital cross-border M&A strategies with long-term planning,continuously improve their competitive awareness,accelerate digital service factor drive,and continuously improve their servitization level;the state should continuously improve its investment system,create a fair competitive environment for enterprises relatively,and continuously expand its opening up to the outside world to enhance the efficiency of M&A in manufacturing enterprises and promote servitization Transformation.