Executive Social Connection, Regional Digital Economy Development, and Enterprise Digital Transformation

Aiming at the research limitation concerning the insufficient exploration of executive social connections in enterprise digital transformation, our research objective is to investigate the influence of executive social connections, namely political and business connections, on enterprise digital transformation. Furthermore, it assesses the moderating effects of regional digital economy development on these relationships. An empirical analysis, encompassing 5407 observations from 868 listed firms between 2012 and 2021 in China, demonstrates that executive political and business connections significantly contribute to enterprise digital transformation both individually and synergistically. Specifically, political connections are found to be more relevant to enhancing enterprise digital transformation in regions with higher levels of digital economy development, while business connections exhibit a stronger correlation in regions with lower levels of digital economy development. Additionally, it is revealed that the synergistic effect of political and business connections is more relevant to enterprise digital transformation in regions with lower levels of digital economy development.